The country grappled with transport disruptions while bracing for more torrential rain and risks from two approaching tropical storms that spurred authorities to issue high-level landslide warnings and order the evacuation of one million people.
More than 200 flights were cancelled and dozens of train services suspended while many expressways were closed, the land ministry said, while carmaker Toyota briefly halted operations at a factory in the southern region of Kyushu.
Weather officials said a lingering seasonal rain front combined with warm, moist air from tropical storms Mekkhala and Higos brought downpours to wide swathes of Japan’s west, threatening landslides, floods and swollen rivers.
About one million people faced evacuation orders after some were lifted for Okinawa and other southern areas, emergency management authorities said.
Mekkhala, downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm, was passing over the southern Ryukyu Islands yesterday after skirting Taiwan, where severe rains shut down parts of the island to keep about six million people from work or school.
Mekkhala was expected to accelerate and approach western and eastern Japan by today, around the same time that Higos was forecast to draw close to eastern Japan, and possibly make landfall, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The combined impact of the storms and the stationary rain front could significantly increase rainfall across much of the country, it said.
Taiwan ordered offices and schools closed yesterday in its three hardest-hit southern regions of Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Tainan, where severe flooding shut down a section of the island’s main north-south railway link.
In the northern city of Hsinchu, home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, offices and schools closed from noon. — Reuters
