AFP UK

Heavy rainfall has left rivers in southwestern Japan swollen and authorities have warned flooding remains possible

Millions of people in Japan were under evacuation warnings on Monday as Typhoon Nanmadol brought strong winds and heavy rain to the southwest of the country after making landfall overnight.

The powerful system has weakened since arriving on land Sunday evening around Kagoshima city in the southwestern region of Kyushu, but it has still uprooted trees, smashed windows and left rivers close to overflowing.

National broadcaster NHK said one person had been killed and 50 others injured as the storm passed through Kyushu. There was no immediate confirmation of the figures from authorities.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who had been scheduled to leave Monday for the United Nations General Assembly, will delay his trip by a day to check on damage from the storm, his office confirmed.

Officials from the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that in Miyazaki prefecture, where some areas saw more rainfall in 24 hours than they normally receive in all of September, river levels were high. 

“Even a tiny amount of additional rainfall could cause the water level to increase, so please remain vigilant about flooding and landslides,” Yoshiyuki Toyoguchi from the land ministry told reporters. 

Still, given the intensity of the storm, which came ashore packing gusts of up to 234 kilometres (145 miles) an hour, damage appeared relatively limited so far.

“The typhoon has all but disappeared today and the rain and wind are also subsiding now,” an official in charge of crisis management in Miyazaki’s Saito city told AFP.

“But power is out in some places… we’re also hearing from many residents that electrical wires have been severed and trees have been toppled,” he said, declining to be named.

“Flooding is affecting some areas as well,” he added, saying that officials “believe there are still many details of the damage we’re yet to grasp”.

Rare “special warnings” for Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, issued only when weather events seen every few decades are forecast, have been downgraded.

But evacuation warnings of various levels remained in place for 9.6 million people on the last day of a holiday weekend in Japan.

The warnings are not mandatory, and authorities have at times struggled to convince residents to leave their homes during extreme weather events.

– ‘I didn’t feel safe at home’ –

In the town of Izumi in Kagoshima prefecture, 30-year-old Yasuta Yamaguchi spent the night in a local hotel to shelter from the storm.

“I came to the hotel to shelter myself because it was windy and I thought it was dangerous,” he told AFP.

“I didn’t feel safe at home.”

By Monday morning, nearly 313,000 households in Kyushu and neighbouring Chugoku region were without power, utilities said. Hundreds of flights had been cancelled, NHK said, and many train services throughout the affected regions were also halted.

As of 11:00 am (0200 GMT), the typhoon was spiralling north-northeast near Kitakyushu, Kyushu island’s northernmost city, with maximum gusts of around 162 kilometres per hour, according to the JMA.

“The thick cloud and eye area around the typhoon’s centre have already disappeared and it is weakening rapidly,” Ryuta Kurora, the head of the JMA’s forecast unit, told reporters.

“The typhoon is still weakening, and from 9:00 am (0000 GMT) it has been downgraded from a category strong and large typhoon to a large typhoon,” he said.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, and left 14 people dead in its wake.

2018 was a particularly bad year, with floods and landslides killing more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.

Heavy rainfall has left rivers in southwestern Japan swollen and authorities have warned flooding remains possible

Millions of people in Japan were under evacuation warnings on Monday as Typhoon Nanmadol brought strong winds and heavy rain to the southwest of the country after making landfall overnight.

The powerful system has weakened since arriving on land Sunday evening around Kagoshima city in the southwestern region of Kyushu, but it has still uprooted trees, smashed windows and left rivers close to overflowing.

National broadcaster NHK said one person had been killed and 50 others injured as the storm passed through Kyushu. There was no immediate confirmation of the figures from authorities.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who had been scheduled to leave Monday for the United Nations General Assembly, will delay his trip by a day to check on damage from the storm, his office confirmed.

Officials from the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that in Miyazaki prefecture, where some areas saw more rainfall in 24 hours than they normally receive in all of September, river levels were high. 

“Even a tiny amount of additional rainfall could cause the water level to increase, so please remain vigilant about flooding and landslides,” Yoshiyuki Toyoguchi from the land ministry told reporters. 

Still, given the intensity of the storm, which came ashore packing gusts of up to 234 kilometres (145 miles) an hour, damage appeared relatively limited so far.

“The typhoon has all but disappeared today and the rain and wind are also subsiding now,” an official in charge of crisis management in Miyazaki’s Saito city told AFP.

“But power is out in some places… we’re also hearing from many residents that electrical wires have been severed and trees have been toppled,” he said, declining to be named.

“Flooding is affecting some areas as well,” he added, saying that officials “believe there are still many details of the damage we’re yet to grasp”.

Rare “special warnings” for Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, issued only when weather events seen every few decades are forecast, have been downgraded.

But evacuation warnings of various levels remained in place for 9.6 million people on the last day of a holiday weekend in Japan.

The warnings are not mandatory, and authorities have at times struggled to convince residents to leave their homes during extreme weather events.

– ‘I didn’t feel safe at home’ –

In the town of Izumi in Kagoshima prefecture, 30-year-old Yasuta Yamaguchi spent the night in a local hotel to shelter from the storm.

“I came to the hotel to shelter myself because it was windy and I thought it was dangerous,” he told AFP.

“I didn’t feel safe at home.”

By Monday morning, nearly 313,000 households in Kyushu and neighbouring Chugoku region were without power, utilities said. Hundreds of flights had been cancelled, NHK said, and many train services throughout the affected regions were also halted.

As of 11:00 am (0200 GMT), the typhoon was spiralling north-northeast near Kitakyushu, Kyushu island’s northernmost city, with maximum gusts of around 162 kilometres per hour, according to the JMA.

“The thick cloud and eye area around the typhoon’s centre have already disappeared and it is weakening rapidly,” Ryuta Kurora, the head of the JMA’s forecast unit, told reporters.

“The typhoon is still weakening, and from 9:00 am (0000 GMT) it has been downgraded from a category strong and large typhoon to a large typhoon,” he said.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, and left 14 people dead in its wake.

2018 was a particularly bad year, with floods and landslides killing more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.

Roads in Hualien county were torn up by Sunday's quake

Aftershocks struck southeastern Taiwan on Monday, including a 5.5-magnitude earthquake that was felt in the capital Taipei, a day after a more powerful tremor killed one person and injured around 150 others.

The latest quake hit around 10 am (0200 GMT), 66 kilometres (41 miles) south-southwest of the coastal city of Hualien at a depth of 13 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Taiwan’s central weather bureau put the magnitude at 5.9.

Rural and sparsely populated southeastern Taiwan has been rattled by a series of jolts since Saturday.

The most powerful, a 6.9-magnitude quake, struck on Sunday afternoon, tearing up roads and bringing down a handful of houses in the town of Yuli where at least one person was killed.

Four others were rescued from a collapsed building, while authorities said a total of 146 suffered injuries. 

Taiwan is regularly hit by quakes and most cause minimal damage but the island also has a long history of deadly disasters. 

Hualien, a tourist hotspot, was struck by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured nearly 300. 

In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

The cave was uncovered on a beach when a mechanical digger hit its roof, with archaeologists using a ladder to descend into the spacious, man-made square cave

Israeli archaeologists on Sunday announced the “once-in-a-lifetime” discovery of a burial cave from the time of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, filled with dozens of pottery pieces and bronze artefacts.

The cave was uncovered on a beach Tuesday, when a mechanical digger working at the Palmahim national park hit its roof, with archaeologists using a ladder to descend into the spacious, man-made square cave.

In a video released by the Israel Antiquities Authority, gobsmacked archaeologists shine flashlights on dozens of pottery vessels in a variety of forms and sizes, dating back to the reign of the ancient Egyptian king who died in 1213 BC.

Bowls — some of them painted red, some containing bones — chalices, cooking pots, storage jars, lamps and bronze arrowheads or spearheads could be seen in the cave.

The objects were burial offerings to accompany the deceased on their last journey to the afterlife, found untouched since being placed there about 3,300 years ago.

At least one relatively intact skeleton was also found in two rectangular plots in the corner of the cave.

“The cave may furnish a complete picture of the Late Bronze Age funerary customs,” said Eli Yannai, an IAA Bronze Age expert.

It is an “extremely rare… once-in-a-lifetime discovery”, Yannai said, pointing to the extra fortune of the cave having remained sealed until its recent uncovering.

– ‘Like an Indiana Jones movie’ –

The findings date to the reign of Rameses II, who controlled Canaan, a territory that roughly encompassed modern day Israel and the Palestinian territories. 

The provenance of the pottery vessels — Cyprus, Lebanon, northern Syria, Gaza and Jaffa — is testimony to the “lively trading activity that took place along the coast”, Yannai said in an IAA statement.

Another IAA archaeologist, David Gelman, theorised as to the identity of the skeletons in the cave, located in what is today a popular beach in central Israel.

“The fact that these people were buried along with weapons, including entire arrows, shows that these people might have been warriors, perhaps they were guards on ships — which may have been the reason they were able to obtain vessels from all around the area,” he said.

Regardless of who the inhabitants of the cave were, the find was “incredible,” said Gelman.

“Burial caves are rare as it is, and finding one that hasn’t been touched since it was first used 3,300 years ago is something you rarely ever find,” he said.

“It feels like something out of an Indiana Jones movie: just going into the ground and everything is just laying there as it was initially -– intact pottery vessels, weapons, vessels made out of bronze, burials just as they were.”

The cave has been resealed and is under guard while a plan for its excavation is being formulated, the IAA said. 

It noted that “a few items” had been looted from it in the short period of time between its discovery and closure. 

A man stands near a road flooded by Hurricane Fiona in Villa Blanca, Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022

Hurricane Fiona knocked out power across Puerto Rico Sunday before making landfall, dumping torrential rain and wreaking “catastrophic” damage in several areas of the US island territory before spinning off towards the Dominican Republic.

Landslides, blocked roads, fallen trees and power lines, as well as a collapsed bridge in the town of Utuado in the central mountainous region were among the destruction already levied by Fiona, Governor Pedro Pierluisi told an evening press conference.

In addition, the entire territory of more than three million people lost power as the hurricane neared, with Pierluisi reporting the electrical system out of service.

Although the hurricane’s eye is now off the territory’s coast, destructive rain and devastating flash floods are expected to buffet the islands overnight before dealing a blow to the Dominican Republic on Monday.

Fiona will go down as a “catastrophic event due to the impacts of flooding” in Puerto Rico’s central mountainous region, east and south, Pierluisi tweeted, adding that 9-13 inches (23-33 centimeters) of rain had fallen in just five hours.

“Rainfall amounts will produce catastrophic life-threatening flash floods and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and portions of the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain,” the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The hurricane has also left some 196,000 people without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

Ahead of Fiona’s arrival in the Dominican Republic, President Luis Abinader suspended work in the public and private sectors for Monday.

It had made landfall in Puerto Rico Sunday afternoon as a Category One hurricane packing sustained winds of 85 miles (140 kilometers) per hour, at the lowest end of the five-tier Saffier-Simpson scale.

Fiona is expected to grow stronger, turning into a “major hurricane” before it heads north into the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, according to the NHC.

– ‘Extremely delicate’ –

In the town of Utuado, a family saw the zinc roof of its house — ripped off in 2017 by Hurricane Maria, then replaced — torn off yet again, according to local media.

“This is an extremely delicate and sad situation. The damage we are seeing is catastrophic in several areas,” Pierluisi told reporters at the Sunday press conference.

“The entire island is experiencing a large accumulation of rain. Multiple cases of severe damage have been reported in many towns.”

The storm has already caused a fatality, with a man left dead when his house was swept away by flooding in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, when Fiona was still classified as a tropical storm.

US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for Puerto Rico on Sunday, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance.

The NHC also said tropical storm conditions are expected in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas by late Monday or early Tuesday.

– ‘Stay in their homes’ –

Pierluisi told reporters that officials were reiterating “the request to our people, which the majority have heeded, to stay in their homes or seek refuge if they need it.”

The island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years — was hit by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, devastating its electrical grid.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

The former Spanish colony became a US territory in the late 19th century before gaining the status of associated free state in 1950.

After years of financial woes and recession, in 2017 the island declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. Later that year, hurricanes Irma and Maria added to the island’s misery, and sparked a feud between San Juan and Washington.

Then-president Donald Trump’s administration was widely accused of failing to provide sufficient federal aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria struck.

Footage of him tossing paper towels to survivors during a visit to the island drew criticism, and Trump later claimed the storm’s death toll had been inflated by Democrats to “make me look as bad as possible.”

Workers sort coal near a coal mine in Datong, China's northern Shanxi province on November 2, 2021

Burning the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves would unleash 3.5 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions — seven times the remaining carbon budget to cap global heating at 1.5C — according to the first public inventory of hydrocarbons released Monday.

Human activity since the Industrial Revolution, largely powered by coal, oil and gas, has led to just under 1.2 degrees Celsius of warming and brought with it ever fiercer droughts, floods and storms supercharged by rising seas. 

The United Nations estimates that Earth’s remaining carbon budget — how much more pollution we can add to the atmosphere before the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is missed — to be around 360 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, or nine years at current emission levels.

The UN’s annual Production Gap assessment last year found that governments plan to burn more than twice the fossil fuels by 2030 that would be consistent with a 1.5C world. 

But until now there has been no comprehensive global inventory of countries’ remaining reserves. 

The Global Registry of Fossil Fuels seeks to provide greater clarity on oil, gas and coal reserves to fill knowledge gaps about global supply and to help policymakers better manage their phaseouts. 

Containing more than 50,000 fields across 89 countries, it found that some countries on their own held reserves containing enough carbon to blow through the entire world’s carbon budget. 

For example, US coal reserves embed 520 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. China, Russia and Australia all hold enough reserves to miss 1.5C, it found. 

All told, the remaining fossil fuel reserves contain seven times the emissions of the carbon budget for 1.5C.

“We have very little time to address the remaining carbon budget, said Rebecca Byrnes, deputy Director of Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, who helped compile the registry.

“As long as we’re not measuring what is being produced, it’s incredibly hard to measure or regulate that production,” she told AFP. 

– Transparency, accountability –

The registry has emissions data for individual oil, gas or goal projects.

Of the 50,000 fields included, the most potent source of emissions is the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, which churns out some 525 million tons of carbon emissions each year. 

The top 12 most polluting sites were all in the Gulf or Russia, according to the database.

Byrnes said that the inventory could help apply investor pressure in countries with large hydrocarbon reserves but saw little prospect of popular pressure to shift away from fossil fuels.

“This just demonstrates that it is a global challenge and many countries that are major producers but aren’t as democratic as the US for example — that’s where transparency comes in,” she told AFP. 

“We’re not kidding ourselves that the registry will overnight result in sort of a massive governance regime on fossil fuels. But it sheds a light on where fossil fuel production is happening to investors and other actors to hold their governments to account.”

The inventory also highlighted large variability in the price of carbon between countries, with taxes on emissions generating nearly $100 per tonne in Iraq but just $5 per tonne in Britain.

Simon Kofe, Tuvalu’s foreign minister, said the database could “assist in effectively ending coal, oil and gas production”.

“It will help governments, companies, and investors make decisions to align their fossil fuel production with the 1.5C temperature limit and, thus, concretely prevent the demise of our island homes, as well as all countries throughout our global community.”

Workers sort coal near a coal mine in Datong, China's northern Shanxi province on November 2, 2021

Burning the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves would unleash 3.5 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions — seven times the remaining carbon budget to cap global heating at 1.5C — according to the first public inventory of hydrocarbons released Monday.

Human activity since the Industrial Revolution, largely powered by coal, oil and gas, has led to just under 1.2 degrees Celsius of warming and brought with it ever fiercer droughts, floods and storms supercharged by rising seas. 

The United Nations estimates that Earth’s remaining carbon budget — how much more pollution we can add to the atmosphere before the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is missed — to be around 360 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, or nine years at current emission levels.

The UN’s annual Production Gap assessment last year found that governments plan to burn more than twice the fossil fuels by 2030 that would be consistent with a 1.5C world. 

But until now there has been no comprehensive global inventory of countries’ remaining reserves. 

The Global Registry of Fossil Fuels seeks to provide greater clarity on oil, gas and coal reserves to fill knowledge gaps about global supply and to help policymakers better manage their phaseouts. 

Containing more than 50,000 fields across 89 countries, it found that some countries on their own held reserves containing enough carbon to blow through the entire world’s carbon budget. 

For example, US coal reserves embed 520 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. China, Russia and Australia all hold enough reserves to miss 1.5C, it found. 

All told, the remaining fossil fuel reserves contain seven times the emissions of the carbon budget for 1.5C.

“We have very little time to address the remaining carbon budget, said Rebecca Byrnes, deputy Director of Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, who helped compile the registry.

“As long as we’re not measuring what is being produced, it’s incredibly hard to measure or regulate that production,” she told AFP. 

– Transparency, accountability –

The registry has emissions data for individual oil, gas or goal projects.

Of the 50,000 fields included, the most potent source of emissions is the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, which churns out some 525 million tons of carbon emissions each year. 

The top 12 most polluting sites were all in the Gulf or Russia, according to the database.

Byrnes said that the inventory could help apply investor pressure in countries with large hydrocarbon reserves but saw little prospect of popular pressure to shift away from fossil fuels.

“This just demonstrates that it is a global challenge and many countries that are major producers but aren’t as democratic as the US for example — that’s where transparency comes in,” she told AFP. 

“We’re not kidding ourselves that the registry will overnight result in sort of a massive governance regime on fossil fuels. But it sheds a light on where fossil fuel production is happening to investors and other actors to hold their governments to account.”

The inventory also highlighted large variability in the price of carbon between countries, with taxes on emissions generating nearly $100 per tonne in Iraq but just $5 per tonne in Britain.

Simon Kofe, Tuvalu’s foreign minister, said the database could “assist in effectively ending coal, oil and gas production”.

“It will help governments, companies, and investors make decisions to align their fossil fuel production with the 1.5C temperature limit and, thus, concretely prevent the demise of our island homes, as well as all countries throughout our global community.”

Firefighters work to remove a tree on Expressway 52 from Caguas to San Juan in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Fiona made landfall Sunday on Puerto Rico’s southwestern coast, knocking out power and threatening to cause “catastrophic flooding” in the US island territory.

Sustained winds of 85 miles (140 kilometers) per hour classified the storm as a Category 1 hurricane, at the low end of the Saffir-Simpson scale.

But further strengthening is predicted over the next 48 hours as Fiona approaches the Dominican Republic before heading north into the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said “catastrophic flooding” was expected both in Puerto Rico and in the Dominican Republic, to the west.

The National Weather Service’s San Juan office warned on Twitter of “life-threatening flash flooding of streams, highways and streets, as well as urban, low-lying and poorly drained areas.”

Puerto Rico lost all power as Fiona neared, Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“Due to the effect of the hurricane, the electrical system is currently out of service,” he said.

Local news sources reported widespread flooding in the island’s southeast, with many roads under water. 

In the town of Utuado, in Puerto Rico’s mountainous center region, a family saw the zinc roof of its house — ripped off in 2017 by Hurricane Maria, then replaced — torn off yet again. 

The NHC also issued a tropical storm warning for the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands, meaning maximum sustained winds of 39 to 73 miles per hour are expected there.

The storm has already caused a fatality, with a man left dead when his house was swept away by flooding in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, when Fiona was still classified as a tropical storm.

US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for Puerto Rico on Sunday, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance.

– ‘Go to shelters’ –

Pierluisi told a news conference the previous day that “we are asking residents not to leave their homes and to go to shelters if they are in areas prone to landslides and flooding.”

The island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years — was hit by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, devastating its electrical grid.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

The former Spanish colony became a US territory in the late 19th century before gaining the status of associated free state in 1950.

After years of financial woes and recession, in 2017 the island declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. Later that year, hurricanes Irma and Maria added to the island’s woes, and sparked a feud between San Juan and Washington.

Then-president Donald Trump’s administration was widely accused of failing to provide sufficient federal aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria struck.

Footage of him tossing paper towels to survivors during a visit to the island drew criticism, and Trump later claimed the storm’s death toll had been inflated by Democrats to “make me look as bad as possible.”

This handout satellite image from NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES shows a storm off the western coast of Alaska early on September 18, 2022

Residents in towns and villages on Alaska’s western coast were beginning Sunday to assess the damage from one of the most powerful storms to hit the region in decades.

The vast remains of Typhoon Merbok battered coastal towns as it rumbled northward, and by Sunday morning it had largely moved into the Chukchi Sea, north of the Bering Strait.

But coastal towns in that northern region remained under flood warnings Sunday, the National Weather Service (NWS) Fairbanks office tweeted.

The storm has hammered a vast stretch of Alaska’s lengthy coastline, bringing powerful winds, tidal surges and what the NWS described as “angry seas,” with waves of 50 feet (15 meters) or more.

Governor Mike Dunleavy has issued a disaster declaration.

Because of the remoteness of many coastal villages, and with communications limited, a full picture of the damage is expected to emerge slowly.

But officials and local residents said the destruction was severe. 

“So many communities I have visited, from Bethel, Unalakleet, Quinahgak, Hooper Bay and up to Nome and Teller, have been inundated by the storm,” Lisa Murkowski, one of Alaska’s US senators, tweeted Sunday.

“I am heartsick at the devastation.”

The state Emergency Operations Center said it had received “reports from multiple communities of power disruptions, damaged homes…flooding and infrastructure damage,” but no reports of injuries. 

Low-lying coastal areas were hardest hit, according to meteorologists and local news reports, with schools and airports flooded and some roads washed away. 

One small town — Golovin, on the Norton Sound — saw houses float away.

“We’ve had flooding in the past a few times, but it was never this severe,” Clarabelle Lewis, a tribal official with the Chinik Eskimo Community, told the Anchorage Daily News. “We’ve never had homes moved from their foundations.”

In Shaktoolik, a village of some 220 people on a gravelly spit between the Tagoomenik River and Norton Sound, Mayor Lars Sookiayak said that a berm built to protect the town from the sea — which had withstood many previous storms — had been wiped out.

“We’re pretty heartbroken,” he told Alaska Public Media News. “We’re almost becoming an island.”

Typhoon Nanmadol has brought heavy rains, high waves and strong winds to southern Japan

Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall in southwestern Japan on Sunday night, as authorities urged millions of people to take shelter from the powerful storm’s high winds and torrential rain.

The storm officially made landfall around 7 pm local time (1000 GMT) as its eyewall arrived near Kagoshima city, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

It was packing gusts of up to 234 kilometres (146 miles) per hour and had already dumped up to 500 mm of rain in less than 24 hours on parts of southwestern Kyushu region.

At least 20,000 people were spending the night in shelters in Kyushu’s Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, where the JMA has issued a rare “special warning” — an alert that is issued only when it forecasts conditions seen once in several decades.

National broadcaster NHK, which collates information from local authorities, said more than seven million people had been told to move to shelters or take refuge in sturdy buildings to ride out the storm.

The evacuation warnings are not mandatory, and authorities have at times struggled to convince people to move to shelters before extreme weather.

They sought to drive home their concerns about the weather system throughout the weekend.

“Please stay away from dangerous places, and please evacuate if you feel even the slightest hint of danger,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted after convening a government meeting on the storm.

“It will be dangerous to evacuate at night. Please move to safety while it’s still light outside.”

The JMA has warned the region could face “unprecedented” danger from high winds, storm surges and torrential rain and called the storm “very dangerous.”

“Areas affected by the storm are seeing the sort of rain that has never been experienced before,” Hiro Kato, the head of the Weather Monitoring and Warning Centre, told reporters Sunday.

“Especially in areas under landslide warnings, it is extremely probable that some kinds of landslides are already happening.”

He urged “maximum caution even in areas where disasters do not usually happen.”

By Sunday evening, utility companies said nearly 200,000 homes across the region were without power.

Trains, flights and ferry runs were cancelled until the passage of the storm, and even some convenience stores — generally open all hours and considered a lifeline in disasters — were shutting their doors.

– ‘Highest caution possible’ –

“The southern part of the Kyushu region may see the sort of violent wind, high waves and high tides that have never been experienced before,” the JMA said Sunday, urging residents to exercise “the highest caution possible”.

On the ground, an official in Kagoshima’s Izumi city said conditions were deteriorating rapidly by Sunday afternoon.

“The wind has become extremely strong. Rain is falling hard too,” he told AFP. “It’s a total white-out outside. Visibility is almost zero.”

In Kyushu’s Minamata city, fishing boats tied up for safety bobbed on the waves, as spray from the sea and bands of rain sluiced the boardwalk.

The storm, which has weakened slightly as it approached land, is expected to turn northeast and sweep up across Japan’s main island through early Wednesday.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, killing 14 people.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.