OITA: One of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades dumped torrential rain across southern regions on Thursday, with one person missing and at least 80 injured as authorities warned of life-threatening flooding and landslides.

Typhoon Shanshan packed gusts of up to 252 kilometres per hour as it smashed into Japan’s main southern island of Kyushu, making it the most powerful storm this year and one of the strongest at landfall since 1960.

The storm then weakened, with maximum gusts of 162 kph at 5pm, the weather office said, but it was still dumping heavy rain across Kyushu and beyond as it moved slowly towards the main island of Honshu.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned that “the risk of a disaster due to heavy rain can rapidly escalate in western Japan as Friday approaches”. Even before Shanshan hit, precipitation pummelled large parts with three members of the same family killed in a landslide late Tuesday in Aichi prefecture around 1,000 kilometres from Kyushu.

Authorities issued their highest alert in places, with more than five million people advised to evacuate, although it was unclear how many did.

Kunisaki city in the Oita region of Kyushu warned inhabitants to “evacuate to a safe place or higher place such as the second floor of your houses” because of the risk of flooding. One person was missing on Thursday — reportedly a man on a small boat — and two people were seriously injured, chief government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2024