Typhoon Nanmadol brought torrential rain and the threat of destructive landslides to Japan’s southernmost main island on Sunday, after more than four million people were ordered to seek shelter from the powerful storm, expected to traverses almost the entire length of the country.
Officials said some areas of the southern island, Kyushu, are expected to receive 20 inches or more of rain, a amount not seen in the region in decades. While heavy rain is considered the main threat to the safety of residents, winds in excess of 110 miles per hour have also been recorded, causing large waves.
Thousands of people sought safety in shelters, and tens of thousands of households lost power. All Kyushu bullet train services have been suspended and hundreds of domestic flights have been cancelled. By Sunday evening, a small number of injuries had been reported, but no deaths.
Meteorological officials warned that the storm could cause more damage than Typhoon Jebi, which killed about a dozen people in Japan in 2018, and Typhoon Hagibis, the strongest typhoon to hit the country in decades. century, causing widespread floods and landslides in 2019 and killing about 100 people.
After passing Okinawa, an archipelago south of Japan, on Sunday, Nanmadol weakened somewhat and became a “very strong storm” as it approached mainland Japan, the meteorological agency said.
It has been classified as a “severe storm,” the agency’s most severe hurricane type based on wind speed. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a US military command in Hawaii, also issued a hurricane warning, designating Nanmadol as a “superstorm” for the past week.
The storm is forecast to follow a northeasterly direction and pull along nearly the entire length of the main islands that make up Japan. Nearly the entire country is already within the agency’s designated hurricane warning zone.
According to the meteorological agency, the storm is likely to return to sea on Wednesday or Thursday. Forecasters in South Korea say it could also affect southern areas of the country that have been devastated by Typhoon Hinnamnor two weeks ago.
The term hurricane, like hurricanes and tornadoes, refers to tropical storm. Typhoons develop in the Pacific Northwest and often affect Asia. Hurricanes form in the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Austin Ramzy and Hikari Hida contributed reporting.
