Health

Typhoon forces Japan’s commemorating 1945 bombing indoors

Published

1 year ago

August 7, 2023

Scattered debris litters a downtown street as high winds brought by Typhoon Khanun hit the city of Naha, Okinawa prefecture on August 2, 2023. – Hundreds of thousands of residents in southern Japan were left without power on August 2 as the powerful typhoon approached the island, bringing strong wind and heavy rain. (Photo by STR / JIJI Press / AFP) / Japan OUT / JAPAN OUT

AFP

The typhoon last week reportedly killed at least two people, injured more than 100, and cut off power for several hundred thousand people in the southern Okinawa region before barrelling toward Taiwan.

The weather system has since swung back to the Okinawa area and was expected to rumble northwards to the west of Kyushu on Tuesday and Wednesday before veering towards South Korea, the Japan Meteorological Agency said in a televised press briefing.

The typhoon “could bring significant rainfall in wide regions,” an agency official told the briefing, adding that “heavy rainfall will increase the risk of disasters”.

The storm forced Nagasaki, one of the main cities in Kyushu, to scale down its annual commemoration ceremony of the 1945 bombing scheduled for Wednesday.

The ceremony is traditionally held outdoors at the city’s Peace Park and is attended by government ministers, officials, and thousands of guests including survivors of the bombing.

The typhoon was located east of the island of Amami Oshima on Monday afternoon, some 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Kyushu, gusting up to 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, the agency said.

The slow-moving nature of the typhoon could mean rainfalls could become prolonged, increasing risks of disasters such as flooding and landslides, the agency said.