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Four Dead Or Missing In Japan Typhoon
Tokyo (AFP) July 15, 2007 One of the most powerful storms to hit Japan in decades headed away from Tokyo on Sunday after leaving four people dead or missing, flooding hundreds of homes and triggering landslides, officials said. Typhoon Man-yi was weakening as it churned in the Pacific Ocean south of the capital, but the national weather agency urged residents to remain on high alert in the coming days, warning that mudslides were still a possibility. More than 24,000 passengers were stranded Sunday as 270 domestic and international flights were cancelled. Most train services disrupted by the storm were restored late in the day as the typhoon headed out to sea. Man-yi lashed the country's main southern and southwestern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku on Saturday, killing three people, leaving another missing, injuring 73 and inundating more than 700 houses, public broadcaster NHK said. The storm -- the worst to hit the archipelago in July since records began in 1951 -- first made landfall in southern Japan on Friday. "It is now moving away from the Tokyo region while weakening. But it is still highly possible mudslides and other disasters will occur after downpours in the past few days," said meteorologist Masahiko Doi. Man-yi was about 330 kilometres (205 miles) southeast of the capital late Sunday, and moving east at an accelerated speed of 55 kilometres an hour, the meteorological agency said. Packing winds of up to 126 kilometres an hour, the typhoon -- named after a strait that is now a reservoir in Hong Kong -- was still capable of whipping up 10-metre waves along the Pacific coasts, the agency warned. "I heard huge noises. I was jolted awake, thinking it was an earthquake, and I saw the floors had become bumpy," a woman whose house was half-buried by a landslide told NHK. An 11-year-old boy and a 76-year-old man drowned in separate incidents in Kyushu's Kagoshima prefecture on Saturday, local officials said. "You are not safe here ... Many residents are elderly and we want them to evacuate by helping each other," Kagoshima University geologist Ryusuke Imura said while helping clear up after a landslide. In the southwestern prefecture of Tokushima, a 79-year-old man also drowned. "He left home to check his rice paddies yesterday. He was found face down in a river some 400 metres (yards) away from where his motorbike was parked," a municipal official told AFP by telephone. One person was still missing in central Nagoya. "Police got a telephone call saying somebody in a river was clinging to weeds on the bank. That person was washed away during the call," a local official said. The weather agency warned northern Japan could get up to 250 millimetres (10 inches) of rainfall in a 24-hour period until Monday afternoon. The northern Japanese city of Soma on Sunday advised some 1,200 residents to evacuate their homes due to the risk of possible floods. "It is up to residents whether to follow the advice but there is a danger of river flooding due to heavy rain," city official Kiyoshi Usami told AFP. Although weakening, the weather agency still rates the storm as a typhoon. Meteorologists said they expected Man-yi to become a moderate tropical depression by Tuesday. Every year, Japan and other nations in the western Pacific are hit by deadly typhoons. Last year, Typhoon Shanshan killed nine people in Japan and injured 300 others. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Japan Meteorological Agency Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes A world of storm and tempest
Indonesian Volcano Calms As Hundreds More Evacuated
Jakarta (AFP) July 12, 2007Activity at a smouldering Indonesian volcano appeared to ease slightly Thursday as hundreds more people were evacuated from its arid slopes, geologists and officials said. Mount Gamkonora, a 1,635-metre (5,461-foot) high volcano on Halmahera island in North Maluku province has been spewing rocks, ash and smoke into the air since Monday and experts fear an eruption could be imminent. |
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