Japan issues highest warning ahead of ‘extremely powerful’ typhoon

Authorities have issued their highest alert as Japan prepares to face its most powerful typhoon of the year on Wednesday, August 28. “Shanshan is expected to approach southern Kyushu with extremely strong force by Thursday and may make landfall.”government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said. “High winds, high waves and storm surges on a scale many people have never experienced are expected.”he added.

The alert calls for more than 56,000 people to evacuate. The approach of the typhoon, with gusts of up to 252 km/h and already accompanied by heavy rain, has prompted auto giant Toyota to suspend production at its factories across the country. Japan Airlines canceled 172 domestic flights and six international flights on Wednesday and Thursday. Rival ANA said it canceled 219 domestic flights and four international flights between Wednesday and Friday.

Late Wednesday afternoon, NHK television footage showed roofs blown off, windows shattered and trees uprooted. Meanwhile, two people remained missing Wednesday after a landslide buried a house with five members of a family in Gamagori, a small city on the Pacific coast in the center of the country.

Japan Meteorological Agency chief forecaster Satoshi Sugimoto warned of “the risk of major disasters extremely high”.

Typhoons in the region are forming closer to shore than before, intensifying more quickly and staying over land longer because of climate change, according to a study published last July.