14 killed as typhoon lashes Japan
At least 14 people were killed as a powerful typhoon sparked mudslides which destroyed homes on a Japanese island before sweeping up the Pacific coast, grounding hundreds of flights and disrupting Tokyo’s transport network during rush hour.
Hardest hit was Izu Oshima island about 75 miles south of Tokyo. Rescuers found 13 bodies, most of them buried by mudslides, police and town officials said. Dozens of homes were destroyed, and more than 50 people are missing.
“We have no idea how bad the extent of damage could be,” town official Hinani Uematsu said.
One woman from Tokyo died after falling into a river and being washed six miles downstream to Yokohama, police said. Two boys and another person were missing on Japan’s main island Honshu, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
More than 350 homes have been damaged or destroyed, including 283 on Izu Oshima, it said.
Typhoon Wipha, which stayed offshore in the Pacific, had sustained winds of 78mph.
More than 30 inches of rain fell on Izu Oshima during a 24-hour period ending this morning, a record since record keeping began in 1991.
The rainfall was particularly heavy before dawn, the kind in which “you can’t see anything or hear anything”, Japan Meteorological Agency official Yoshiaki Yano said.
Izu Oshima is the largest island in the Izu chain southwest of Tokyo. It has one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, Mount Mihara, and is a major base for growing camellias. About 8,200 people live on the island, which is accessible by ferry from Tokyo.
As a precaution, the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, released tons of rainwater that were being held behind protective barriers around storage tanks for radioactive water.
Tokyo Electric Power said only water below an allowable level of radioactivity was released, which Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority allowed. During an earlier typhoon in September, rainwater spilled out before it could be tested.
