Japanese authorities issued a "special warning" as one of the biggest typhoons ever to strike the Asian nation makes landfall on the southern island of Kyushu.
The violent typhoon, named Nanmadol, has brought winds of at least 180 km/h and officials said some areas could experience up to 500mm of rainfall over Sunday and Monday. Authorities have urged at least four million residents to evacuate their homes for their safety.
Violent Typhoon Nanmadol
Officials said that extensive flooding and landslides were expected to be a result of the typhoon while bullet train services, ferries, and hundreds of flights have already been canceled. Nanmadol made landfall near the city of Kagoshima, located on the southern tip of Kyushu, on Sunday morning.
The region is the southernmost of the four islands that make up the main body of the Asian nation and has a population of more than 13 million people. Japanese authorities issued the special alert for the island, the first ever put in place outside the Okinawa Prefecture, which consists of the smaller, remote Japanese islands in the East China Sea, as per BBC.
In a statement, Japan's Meteorological Agency said that the violent typhoon would bring torrential rain, storm surges along the coast, and winds powerful enough to threaten the collapse of homes. An Izumi city official said that conditions on Sunday afternoon were deteriorating rapidly.
The official added that the wind had become extremely powerful and that the rain was pouring hard as well. They said that the outside was a total white-out, bringing visibility down to almost zero.
According to NHK World-Japan, authorities continued to urge residents in southwestern Japan to be on high alert as Nanmadol continued to move north. Authorities also issued an emergency warning for the southern prefecture of Miyazaki due to the risk of large-scale disasters seen only once every few decades.
Calls for Evacuations
The typhoon is heading north in Fukuoka prefecture, after ripping through Kyushu, with violent winds that affected parts of the Chugoku and Shikoku regions. The nation's Meteorological Agency advised residents in Miyazaki Prefecture to move to high ground or stay inside sturdy buildings to protect themselves.
Officials reported that heavy rain was falling over a wide area as nearly 900mm have been recorded in Misato Town since Saturday. That amount was more than the average for the entire month of September.
Authorities said that the violent typhoon is expected to change its course and move eastward after passing through Kyushu on Monday morning. It is then unlikely to move northeast near the main island of Honshu through Tuesday.
Local officials reported that several people were injured amid the violent weather phenomenon. In Kushima city, in the southern Miyazaki Prefecture, a woman was slightly injured by shards of glass when powerful winds broke windows at a gymnasium. National TV broadcaster NHK reported that 15 individuals had been injured.
There were at least 20,000 people who spent the night in shelters in Kyushu's Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures. The evacuation warnings are not mandatory but authorities have, at times, struggled to persuade people to move to shelters before extreme weather, The Guardian reported.
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