TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) urged residents to evacuate parts of the southern island of Kyushu on Saturday, ahead of a powerful, large-scale typhoon that is expected to make landfall on Sunday and cause up to half meter of rain.
Nanmadol, classified as a “super typhoon” by the US Navy’s Tropical Cyclone Forecasting Center (Joint Typhoon Warning Center), could be the most destructive tropical storm to hit Japan in decades.
The agency said it could issue a “special warning” for Kagoshima prefecture and other parts of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, as early as Saturday evening, with the possibility of strong waves and abundant rains in these regions. This would be the first alert of this type for a prefecture located in the north of the Okinawa archipelago, according to national media.
“Unprecedented” storms and rainfall could hit the region, JMA official Ryuta Kurora told a televised press conference, urging residents to evacuate before nightfall.
Southern Kyushu could receive 500 millimeters of rain on Sunday, while the central region of Tokai is likely to record 300 millimeters of precipitation.
Rail transport company Kyushu Railway Co began suspending some train lines on Saturday, with larger suspensions scheduled for Sunday. Dozens of weekend flights have been canceled in the southern region, according to the NHK television channel.
Typhoon Nanmadol, the 14th of the season, was near Minami-Daito Island in southern Japan and was heading northwest at a speed of 20 km/h on Saturday afternoon. In the center of the storm, winds were blowing at 198 km/h, with gusts of up to 270 km/h, according to the JMA.
The storm, whose strength is equivalent to that of a class 5 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, is expected to curve eastward and pass over Tokyo on Tuesday before receding out to sea on Wednesday.
National television channels have broadcast images of strong winds and rain which are already battering the Okinawa archipelago, in southern Japan, as the storm approaches.
(Report Rocky Swift, French version Benjamin Mallet)