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LAST UPDATE | 12 Oct 2019
POWERFUL TYPHOON HAGIBIS has made landfall in Japan and has already claimed a first victim.
The storm brings potentially record-breaking rains and high winds and has sparked evacuation orders for more than 1.6 million people.
Rated “large and very strong”, the storm has also forced the cancellation of two Rugby World Cup matches, disrupted the Japanese Grand Prix and grounded more than 1,600 flights.
It crashed into Japan’s main Honshu island just before 7:00 pm local time (11 am Irish time), barrelling into Izu, a peninsula southwest of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
The storm has weakened but was still packing gusts of wind up to 216 km/h around an hour before the central eye hit the shore.
It was Hagibis’ torrential rain that prompted the JMA to issue their highest-level emergency warning for parts of Tokyo and the surrounding areas, warning of disaster.
The storm claimed its first victim hours before arriving on the coast, when strong winds from its outer bands flipped a car in Chiba east of Tokyo and killed the driver.
“A 49-year-old man was found in a toppled mini truck. He was sent to hospital but confirmed dead,” Hiroki Yashiro, a spokesman at Ichihara Fire Department, in Chiba, told AFP.
Hagibis is the first storm rated “very strong” to hit the main island of Honshu since 1991, when the category system was introduced, local media said.
By midday, 1.64 million people in the affected area were under non-mandatory evacuation orders, with authorities urging the elderly, disabled and those with children to leave early.
Hagibis is an unusually large storm, expected to bring “brutal winds and violent seas” to large swathes of the country, the weather agency said.
The expected rainfall, in particular, has sparked concern, with the JMA warning that high tides ahead of a full moon increase the risk of flooding.
It has issued warnings for strong winds, high waves, landslides and serious flooding for large areas of Honshu.
Power outages
Before the storm made landfall, torrential rain was falling and tornado-like gusts of wind ripped into several homes in Chiba, destroying one.
Five people including a three-year-old boy were sent to hospital, but none suffered serious injuries, the local fire department told AFP.
The JMA has forecast half a metre of rain for the Tokyo area in the 24 hours to midday on Sunday, with more for the central Tokai region.
Television footage showed gigantic waves smashing into coastal breakwaters and residents living near a river in Tokyo piling up sandbags in front of their houses.
Others have nailed wooden boards to the frames of windows.
By 9 am local time (1 am Irish time) 11,600 households in Chiba had already lost power. The region was badly hit by another powerful typhoon in September.
Automakers, including Toyota and Honda, have shut down their factories, and many supermarkets and convenience stores in the capital closed, a day after residents shopping for typhoon supplies emptied the shelves.
Rugby, F1 disrupted
The storm has also thrown two major sporting events into disarray, delaying Japanese Grand Prix qualifiers scheduled for today and forcing the cancellation of two Rugby World Cup matches: England-France and New Zealand-Italy.
The storm could also jeopardise a key match-up between Scotland and Japan scheduled for tomorrow.
Officials are not expected to make a final decision on that game until tomorrow morning, after they have assessed any damage to the venue and transport links.
Scotland face elimination if the match is axed and have warned they could take legal action if the game is cancelled. World Rugby called the threat “disappointing”.
The storm is also causing transport chaos over a long weekend in Japan.
Japanese airlines have scrapped more than 1,660 domestic flights and some 260 international flights on Saturday, NHK said.
Many bullet train lines from the capital are suspended, along with both overground and some subway lines serving the Tokyo area.
The storm has also forced the first all-day typhoon closure of Tokyo’s Disneyland and DisneySea theme parks, with doors shut from Saturday until at least noon on Sunday.
Japan is hit by around 20 typhoons a year, though the capital is not usually badly affected.
Hagibis is bearing down on the region just weeks after another powerful storm, Typhoon Faxai, hit the area with similar strength, killing two and causing major damage in Chiba.
More than 36,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in Chiba, and the local government has urged those in affected buildings to take shelter elsewhere during the storm.
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Why was Japan chosen for the Rugby World Cup knowing it was during the Typhoon season?
@Joe Murphy: To grow the game and wallets !
@Joe Murphy: that’s the real question. There are a few saying that cancelling games is the right thing to do for fan safety but fan safety wasn’t a priority when picking the host.
@Joe Murphy: AFAIK the typhoons have hit Japan much later than they usually do. Some people are putting this down to climate change.
@De Zach Same: https://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/typhoon-season-in-japan
@De Zach Same: was there a chance though? It’s like having a cricket world cup in Dublin this time of year knowing nearly every match will be rained off.
@Joe Murphy: Japan was awarded the World Cup 10 years ago. Typhoon season in Japan normally finishes in early to mid September. This is why they had contingency plans in place. And as someone else rightly said, it was to grow the game on the Asian region. Who was to know 10 years ago that the most devastating typhoon since the 1950’s was to hit the region? If you knew, why didn’t you speak up?!
@Dave O’Keeffe:
i would take this disruption if it meant Japan would grow to a Tier 1 nation
@Joe Murphy: So the Olympics next year in July and August is likely to be hit too
@Jonathan Nolan: OK so. What contingency plans have been executed??
@David: oh give over David & co with your cribbing! What have you ever organised?
@Jonathan Nolan: Cancelling games isn’t a contingency plan.
@Sean: your right. Put us in our place there. That’s the end of this discussion due to your input. Thanks.
@Joe Murphy: my thoughts exactly. A bit similar to the football World Cup in Qatar. Money rules
@David: sorry David. That was incorrect of me to use the worlds “contingency plans”. What I meant was that all 20 teams in the World Cup signed up to what would happen if games were cancelled in the event of a typhoon. The whole 2 points and a draw was planned which is what I initially meant by incorrectly using the worlds “contingency plans”) year’s ago when Japan were initially given the go ahead to host. As I said, I don’t believe anyone would have predicted the largest typhoon to hit either this late in the season, or this severely, 10 years out.
@FlyingDogThing: you are correct. My
Mistake in using the worlds “Contingency plan”, as stated above
@De Zach Same: typhoon season is June to October
@Joe Murphy: 1 day of adverse weather in a pocket of the country for a 7 week tournament shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to host a tournament there and could happen in any country including our own (Ophelia in October 2017)
This is on World Rugby for not having a plan in place for rescheduling.
@Joe Brennan: Too many people still deny climate change is real. The 2020 Olympics in Japan is highly likely to be hit by a record breaking heatwave. In all likelihood topping 42 degrees C. Last summer 40 people died in Tokyo, while over 1000 were hospitalised with heat stroke during a record shattering heatwave there. How are planners going to make contingencies if they don’t even believe that there might be a potential problem and that these are just freak events?
@Joe Murphy: it’s all about the money and world rugby are unashamedly only interested in the All Blacks winning
@Paraic:
You should rename yourself, the climate alarmist whisperer.
Terrible to hear of that man’s death and no doubt more deaths will result which will be tragic. But as regards rugby, various unions obviously had no problem voting to hold the world cup in Japan during typhoon season and now we have the predictable and farcical consequences. Yet the Scottish and Welsh unions didn’t vote for us for 2023, largely based on a perceived lack of various important infrastructure (open to correction here) 6/7 years before the event (surely enough time to get the infrastructure in place) They voted for France instead who recently enough held it!!! I’d say smelly money talks the loudest in World rugby. We should be hosting 2023. Sickening.
@mike Kennedy:
“surely enough time to get the infrastructure in place”
Entertainment centre in Cork has not started construction. it is about 4-5 years at least since the “sod has been turned”
so no, it the committee was right to flag the infrastructure issue with our proposal
@Stephen Coveney: I know the infrastructure is a problem but we’re not a third world country in fairness. New Zealand held it in 2015. My main point is that money talks.
@mike Kennedy: 2011 Mike
@mike Kennedy:
New Zealand has good infrastructure. Ireland hasn’t gotten theirs right in a 100 or so years of trying man. There’s no way they would have been ready. It’s not a third world country economically, but infrastructure wise, it is.
@Nollaig Elliot: Correct. Our crappy infrastructure was a big part of why we lost the bid. That’s our reward for not investing.
@Nollaig Elliot: we’re hosting the Ryder cup in a small village near a small city in 2026, we’d have managed a world cup in 2023 alright.
@Nollaig Elliot: having being to a Lions tour and WC in NZ i can safely safe our infrastructure it on par at least and they made it work brilliantly and we could have done like wise. At the end of the day it was a money decission to award it to France.
@mike Kennedy: well our infrastructure is pretty poor outside East. Have you been to Donegal and northwest? It’s been neglected and I was glad we missed out. Still the government don’t seem to care – instead of creating extra train lines to remove cars off road they just tax petrol to ward off the Greens.
@Peter McGlynn: well I was gutted we missed out Peter, can’t understand how anyone could be glad, it would have been great for the country. I’m no apologist for bad economic policies in this country bu I’m n about sport and the feel good factor here .
@Stephen Coveney: ah but the fecking committee said South Africa had a better infrastructure
@Peter McGlynn: there wouldn’t be games in Donegal
@mike Kennedy: no wifi in the Irish Stadium strong enough for the 1000’s of media that would be there to broadcast the games. Not enough hotels or flights into the country to accommodate 500,000 guests in 6weeks weeks. Countries like Japan and France are still light years ahead of us.
@mike Kennedy: to be fair we would probably have a few red weather warnings in October by then, too
Jesus, the state of the amateur meteorologists on this! This so-called ‘Typhoon Season’ is from March to October, most of the year, although typhoons occur throughout the year. The Fifa World Cup, Olympics and Athletics World Championship have all taken place in Japan during ‘Typhoon Season’ and without interruption. This Typhoon is the largest to hit Tokyo in decades. You’re a dope if you suggest that World Rugby knew a weather event this large would likely happen.
As for the eejit who said ‘just one dead’, the Typhoon hasn’t made landfall yet. It will do within the next hour or so. I know because I’m in Tokyo right now.
@CR Jackson: Amen. Stay safe.
@CR Jackson: it’s not as bad during May June and July, it’s at its worst this time of year there
@CR Jackson: hope you stay safe man. I think the problem in regards to planning is due to lack of contingency plans. They’ve forecasted typhoons as far ahead as December.
@CR Jackson: also, these gowls saying ‘Sure why don’t they move the games to the other side of the island’ really need to look at a map. Most of Honshu’s population is concentrated on the south coast around Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka/Kyoto and Nagoya. There are very few major cities on the north coast and few large stadiums. It’s the equivalent of saying ‘Sure why don’t they move the All Ireland final out of Dublin and have it in Longford’.
@CR Jackson: Playing it in Longford would be an awful lot better than just cancelling it though
@CR Jackson: How are things there now? Hope you’re safe and well.
Puts a game of rugby into perspective when you see people getting killed and being evacuated and getting homes destroyed
@Conor Mc Lysaght: It sure does Conor. Some people on here more self interested in peddling conspiracy theories and fake outrage to realize that though unfortunately.
There was no plan B, there was a probability typhoons of some strength would form over the course of the competition and the default setting was to cancel the games this is a farce, lets give a good reason for this.
They knew a few days in advance the typhoons were coming, in the instance of the Japan v Scotland match they had 5 days notice.
The typhoons occur on the pacific sea region of japan, why not have venues on stand by on the other side of Japan in case this very likely scenario plays out.
This is a rational and logical plan b to implement, especially in relation to likely typhoons.
That something logical along these lines was not planned for has made a mockery of the competition, the IRB, the wold cup organizers and the sport.
@ktsiwot: it’s hard to believe that they didn’t think about this. The cost of keeping a stadium and the massive logistics around running it on game day, food, drink, transport, hospitality, security, tv broadcasts etc probably made them rule it out as a viable option based on cost. Could be wrong but that’s just a guess. Knowing Japan if any country would be capable of pulling this off logistically it would be there so it must not be viable from a cost perspective which is unfortunate for everyone.
@ktsiwot: your plan B is deemed to fail. Japan is a small country so typhoon can hit anywhere. Your safety is already 50-50. I would rather lose and come home alive.
I don’t understand why the Japan Scotland game hasn’t been moved to one of the other stadiums outside the hurricane area . They have known this was going to happen since mid week so why wasn’t it moved.There was plenty of time for fans to adjust their travel plans. They even have an stadium with a roof we already played in and there is no game on there this weekend
Bit unfair four teams get a huge advantage going into the quarterfinals
Only one person and mass evacuations? Still it’s a farce that the games weren’t rearranged. /s
@Peter McCarthy:
come back when you have an intelligent post
@Peter McCarthy: Based on the satellite image, 200+km/h gusts, 200mm of rain (per the radio this morning), I think they may have a good idea of what’s coming!! I don’t think it’ll be like Ophelia ’hitting’ our East coast…
@Peter McCarthy:
Journal! if an account is suspended, like Peters above, remove the comment.
@Peter McCarthy: ONLY one person???
@Peter McCarthy: agree
@Peter McCarthy: youre a dummy son
@Peter McCarthy: Did everyone miss the /s at the end of what I wrote? I was making a point about how unrealistic and unsympathetic people were demanding the games be rearranged in the face of such devastation and loss.
@Peter McCarthy: /s lol / this isnt 4chan buck (anyways Peter post was sarcastic as he used slash s)
Do not listen to deniers who used to say climate change does not exist and now say this is just natural climate change. For current climate change to happen naturally would take hundreds thousand of years. Reality Warmer waters fuel more powerful hurricanes As Micheal Man puts it “For every 1 degree Celsius of warming (1.8 Fahrenheit), there is a 7% increase in maximum wind speeds and a 23% increase in destructive potential” https://phys.org/news/2019-10-climate-science-monster-storms-hurricane.html
@GO GREEN: Shut up.
Many Irish still in the affected area ?
@Susy Williams: Ireland were playing on the south island today so Irish fans should be well out of harms way.
We should fly out our disaster team on a one way ticket and they’ll sort it out
And make sure to send the minister and the net eireqnn experts
This week typhoon….. next week Godzilla
have your say