Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
AT LEAST 14 people were killed and nine others are missing after Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Japan, as rescuers scrambled to reach people trapped by catastrophic flooding.
The storm’s “unprecedented” heavy rain triggered deadly landslides and caused rivers to burst their banks. The destruction forced Rugby World Cup organisers to cancel a third match though the key Japan-Scotland clash will go ahead.
By this morning, the significantly weakened storm had moved back off land, but serious flooding was reported in several areas, including central Japan’s Nagano, where a burst levee sent water from the Chikuma river gushing into residential neighbourhoods, flooding homes up to the second floor.
Japan’s military deployed 27,000 troops to aid rescue operations, including some in helicopters who winched people from the roofs and balconies of flooded homes in Nagano.
In Kawagoe, northwest of Tokyo, rescue workers in boats were evacuating elderly people from a retirement home that was heavily flooded in the storm.
One woman wearing an orange life vest clutched at rescue workers in hardhats as the boat moved through the muddy floodwaters.
Hagibis smashed into the main Japanese island of Honshu yesterday evening as one of the most violent typhoons in recent years, with wind gusts of up to 216 km/h.
The storm claimed its first victim even before making landfall, when high winds flipped a vehicle, killing its driver.
Landslides and flooding claimed more lives overnight, and the toll climbed higher after sunrise on Sunday, as the scale of the devastation wrought by Hagibis became clear.
‘Great impact’
Bodies were retrieved from homes and vehicles submerged by floodwaters, from raging overflowing rivers, and from buildings buried in landslides.
Officials have said that at least 14 people have been killed.
The dead included a municipal worker whose car was overcome by floodwaters and a Chinese crew member aboard a boat that sank overnight in Tokyo Bay.
Four of the crew onboard were rescued, but authorities were still searching for another seven.
The government said at least nine people were missing and more than 140 injured in the storm.
“We continue to see a great impact on people’s life,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
“The government will do its utmost,” he added, pledging to deploy more troops and emergency officials if needed.
More than 160,000 homes were still without power by this afternoon, with around 1,000 in Chiba, east of Tokyo, also experiencing water outages, national broadcaster NHK said.
At the storm’s peak, more than seven million people were placed under non-compulsory evacuation orders, with tens of thousands heeding the call and moving into government shelters.
Japan-Scotland match on
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest-level rain disaster warning, saying “unprecedented” downpours were expected.
“The water came up higher than my head in the house,” Hajime Tokuda, a finance professional living in Kawasaki near Tokyo told AFP.
He moved to his family’s home nearby, but that flooded too and they had to be rescued by boat.
In Saitama’s Higashi Matsuyama city, northwest of Tokyo, rice and flower farmers were counting their losses, with water submerging warehouses full of freshly harvested product.
“We never had a flood like this before in this neighbourhood,” said one farmer, who declined to give his name.
We cannot even go into the flower warehouse due to the water. I don’t know where to start cleaning this mess.
The storm also brought travel chaos during a long holiday weekend in Japan, with flights grounded and both local and bullet trains serving Tokyo suspended fully or partially.
Train services have been resuming and operations were slowly restarting at the two airports serving the capital, although many flights were cancelled.
But some lines remained halted, with aerial footage in Nagano showing rows of bullet trains partially submerged by flooding.
The storm had already caused havoc for the sports world, forcing the delay of Japanese Grand Prix qualifiers and the cancellation of two Saturday Rugby World Cup matches.
On Sunday morning, organisers said they had been forced to cancel a third fixture — Namibia-Canada — but gave the go-ahead to three others including a crunch Japan-Scotland game in Yokohama, near Tokyo.
Scotland faced elimination if the match was cancelled and had threatened legal action if it was not played.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Reminds me of that Olay ad “is it DNA or Olay”. It’s DNA, it will always be DNA some people are just genetically gifted to look younger and prettier for longer and can get the same results with water as someone else would with all the expensive beauty products in the world….
@Sarah: yep. The only thing that works to prevent you looking older before your time is suncream.
Just stay natural and forget the BS shoved down our throat by these companies and this advertisement piece.
Beauty consumers are more educated now than ever according to the Dublin-based aesthetician….
Please, they are amongst the most vacuous and shallow people on the planet.
As for an aesthetian, a fancy sounding made up word that Google spellchecker doesn’t recognise to give the impression of professionalism.
My friend text me the other day to say her 13 year old daughter was going to her first disco. The daughter had to get new outfit, new make-up, fake tan, eyebrows done and a new half bra (whatever that is). She ended the text with FFS!!!!!! I replied with the text, we used to go out with a jumper and jeans and we were happy out!!!!! If your beautiful inside, your beautiful outside.
Correct me if I’m wrong but wouldn’t breathing pure oxygen kill you whether it’s in a pressurised chamber or not?
@Diarmuid Hunt: you’re wrong.
@Diarmuid Hunt: Not at all, I go for 1 hour a week as a treatment for MS, also beneficial for cancer, sports injuries etc. due to its healing properties. Too expensive in South so I go to the North where an actual charity runs it. Long term users of HBO actually do have fabulous skin!
@Carla Brennan: But it doesn’t ‘heal cancer’. I’ve read studies of studies, and they all conclude that while it doesn’t do harm, only some people with breast cancer had a slight improvement in their health. Whether that was due to the hyperbaric sessions or not is debatable. It doesn’t even affect most types of cancer either way. I would like to hear what charity is paying a sports clinic to treat cancer patients, as that sort of wishful fundraising seems a bit of a con.
Jaz, that thumbnail looked like someone dangling off a bridge for a sec.
have your say