Japan typhoon toll at 17, dozens still missing

Agence France-Presse

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(3rd UPDATE) Typhoon Wipha, dubbed the strongest in a decade, has caused landslides that buried houses as it churned past an island just south of Tokyo on October 16

TOKYO, Japan (3rd UPDATE) – At least 17 people died as a powerful typhoon lashed Japan’s Pacific coast Wednesday, October 16, media reports said, with dozens still missing and the death toll likely to rise.

Typhoon Wipha, dubbed the strongest in a decade, set off landslides as it churned past an island just south of Tokyo.

Public broadcaster NHK reported at least 16 people had died and 43 were unaccounted for on Oshima, after houses were destroyed or swept away on the volcanic island, 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Japanese capital.

“We’ve confirmed that 13 people have died, and the number is likely to increase later,” a police official in Oshima earlier told AFP.

A woman was confirmed dead in western Tokyo after her body was recovered from a river.

Many of the bodies of those who died on Oshima were found in houses that had been splintered by huge volumes of earth sent crashing down mountainsides by torrential rains and strong winds.

Two other bodies were pulled from a swollen river.

Footage from the island showed ruined wooden homes half buried in mud, mangled trees and other debris piled up around them.

In a moment of hope, NHK showed one woman being plucked out from the bog alive, her mudded and trembling hand held by a rescuer as she was taken by stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

“City hall and fire station officials are doing rescue work in places accessible,” a local official told AFP.

The storm dumped more than 12 centimeters (5 inches) of rain on Oshima in an hour, according to the meteorological agency.

Some of the around 8,000 people who live on the island had sought shelter in evacuation centres as the huge storm approached, reporting water gushing into their homes, according to local media.

TYPHOON WIPHA. Typhoon Wipha as seen in this satellite image by the US Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), 16 Oct 2013. Image courtesy JTWC

Tokyo Metropolitan Police dispatched about 50 special police officers as reinforcements, while the military sent troops and helicopters to the island, which is usually only accessible by ferry.

In western Tokyo, a woman who appeared to be in her 40s was confirmed dead at a hospital after she was discovered in a river, taking the total death toll to 17, police and reports said.

A further three people were missing in the greater Tokyo area, officials and reports said.

In Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo, helicopters were used early in the day to look for two elementary school boys who were believed to have been near a beach during the storm, a police spokesman said.

And fears were growing for the safety of a man in his 50s in Chiba prefecture, who has been missing since telling police there had been a landslide behind his house.

Further north, the operator of the battered Fukushima nuclear plant said it had released some rain water that was trapped inside its barrages, but added that its radiation reading was within safety limits.

It reported no ill effects on the power station, where thousands of tonnes of radiation-polluted water are being stored in tanks after being used to cool reactors.

At a train station east of Tokyo, a landslide caused a platform to collapse and left a section of the track unsupported, a spokeswoman for Keisei Electric Railway said. There were no reported injuries.

The Keisei line is a major rail route to the busy Narita Airport, the main international gateway to Tokyo.

More than 400 flights to and from Tokyo were cancelled, most of them domestic, according to major Japanese carriers All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines.

Two flights between Tokyo and Seoul and another two flights between Tokyo and Hong Kong were among the cancellations, ANA said.

Altogether, the cancellations affected some 61,600 travellers, the airlines said.

Typhoon Wipha, which did not make landfall, brought heavy rains and strong winds to Tokyo’s metropolitan area, heavily disrupting the morning commute for hundreds of thousands of people.

At 1000 GMT (6:00 pm Manila time), it was located in the Pacific off Hokkaido and had been downgraded to an extratropical cyclone, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. – Rappler.com

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