Japan prepares for the impending threat of two storms as heavy rainfall disrupts various regions in Taiwan
Japan had trouble getting around on Friday because of the danger of more heavy rain and two tropical storms coming through. High-level landslide alerts and evacuation orders were issued.
Warnings of more heavy rain and the threat of two incoming tropical storms hampered Japan’s transportation on Friday. This led to high-level landslide alerts and evacuation orders that affected about a million people.
Japan’s land ministry said that more than 200 flights were canceled, dozens of train services were stopped, and several expressways were closed. Toyota also temporarily shut down one of its factories in the southern Kyushu region.
Weather experts said that warm and humid air from Tropical Storms Mekkhala and Higos, along with a persistent seasonal rain front, had caused heavy rain to fall across large parts of western Japan. This increased the dangers of landslides, flooding, and rivers overflowing.
Emergency management officials said that about a million people were told to leave their homes, though in Okinawa and other southern places, some of the warnings had already been lifted.
Mekkhala, which had gone from a typhoon to a tropical storm, went over the southern Ryukyu Islands in Japan on Friday. It had been going around Taiwan, where heavy rains shut down parts of the island and kept about six million people from going to work or school.
“The rain wasn’t too bad last night.” “But it rained all morning,” Chi, who owns a dessert shop in Zhubei City in northern Taiwan, said. “The road outside was up to my knees in water, and inside our shop it was just below my knees.”
The Japan Meteorological Agency said that Mekkhala would speed up and move towards western and eastern Japan by Saturday. Higos was expected to approach eastern Japan and could make landfall.
The weather service warned that the interaction between the two storms and the regular rain front could make it rain harder in many parts of Japan.
Toyota said that work at its Kyushu plant would start up again on Friday during the second shift. Work had been stopped since Thursday afternoon.
Taiwan closed schools and offices in Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Tainan, which are in the southernmost parts of the country and were hit the hardest by the flooding. Part of the island’s main north-south railway line had to be stopped because of the flooding.
In the northern city of Hsinchu, which is home to TSMC, the biggest contract chipmaker in the world, schools and businesses close at noon.
TSMC said in a statement that its factories were running normally and that safety precautions had been taken at all of its facilities in Taiwan in case of hazardous weather.
Taiwan’s four hit areas are home to about six million people. Since Thursday, it has rained almost a meter in parts of the mostly rural Pingtung region.
In Taiwan, no one was hurt, but nearly 200 people were being evacuated from two villages in Hualien County that were downstream of a barrier lake in the mountains that was quickly filling up.
Barrier lakes form when boulders, rocks, or other natural obstacles block a river and keep water from naturally draining away.
In another part of Hualien last year, 19 people died when the banks of another barrier lake broke during Super Typhoon Ragasa, flooding homes with water and mud.
While the rain causes damage, it also brings some comfort to southern Taiwan, which relies on the typhoon season every summer and fall to fill up reservoirs after dry winters.
