TOKYO: A “very strong” typhoon buffeted Japan’s Pacific coast with fierce winds and heavy rain on Friday (Aug 16), forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains in the Tokyo area and leaving over 2,000 homes without power.
Located about 170km south of Tokyo, Typhoon Ampil was packing gusts of up to 216kmh as it headed northeast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The eye of the typhoon was not expected to make landfall, instead barrelling northeastward up the Honshu coast and skirting the Tokyo region, home to around 40 million people, before heading back into the Pacific from Saturday.
The JMA rated the weather system as “very strong”, one notch below its highest category of “violent typhoon”, with maximum wind speeds of 195kmh.
The agency warned people to be “on high alert for violent storms, tidal waves, landslides, flooding in low-lying lands, and river floods”.
Risk of heavy rains-linked disasters will increase through Friday night in the Kanto area surrounding Tokyo and through Saturday morning in the northern Tohoku region, it said in a statement.
The US military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast maximum sustained wind speeds of 195kmh by 3am Saturday (1800 GMT Friday) off the coastal Chiba region east of the capital.
More than 18,000 people were advised to evacuate in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said in a statement.
Some 2,000 households in Tokyo’s neighbouring prefectures, mainly Chiba, were without power as of Friday afternoon due to the typhoon, according to the utility operator.
