Typhoon Haishen heads to South Korea after battering southern Japan

The storm slammed Okinawa and other islands over the weekend with heavy rain, rough waves and high tides

The second powerful typhoon to slam Japan in a week damaged buildings, caused blackouts in nearly half a million homes and injured 20 people on southern Japanese islands before heading to South Korea on Monday. Traffic in southern Japan was still paralyzed even after the typhoon passed. Bullet trains were suspended and most domestic flights in and out of southwestern Japanese airports were cancelled Monday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency warned strong winds and torrential rain would continue even after the typhoon moved north. By Monday morning, Haishen, which means “sea god” in Chinese, was near the southeastern coast of South Korea packing sustained winds of up to 144 kmph (89 mph). The storm slammed Okinawa and other islands over the weekend with heavy rain, rough waves and high tides.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Monday that at least 20 people, including two seriously, were injured in several southern prefectures. As of Monday morning, about half a million homes were still out of power. Haishen is the second typhoon in less than two weeks to take a similar path through southern Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Typhoon Maysak last week injured dozens of people and damaged homes and other buildings..

Typhoon pummels South Korea with flooding, damaging winds at 126 kmph

North Korea”s state TV showed widespread flooding in the eastern coastal cities of Wonsan and Tanchon, but the country didn”t immediately report any casualties

International News: A powerful typhoon ripped through South Korea’s southern and eastern coasts with tree-snapping winds and flooding rains on Thursday, knocking out power to more than 270,000 homes and leaving at least one person dead. With winds blowing up to 126 kilometres (78 miles) per hour, Typhoon Maysak was offshore east of the city of Sokcho on Thursday morning and heading toward North Korea, said South Korea’s weather agency. It expected Maysak to weaken to a tropical storm within hours. North Korea’s state TV showed widespread flooding in the eastern coastal cities of Wonsan and Tanchon, but the country didn’t immediately report any casualties.

Japan’s coast guard was searching for a livestock ship carrying 42 crew members that made a distress call off a southern Japanese island in seas roughened by the typhoon. Rescuers safely plucked one crew member from the sea, but information wasn’t immediately available on the reason for the ship’s distress.

More than 2,400 South Koreans evacuated their homes due to the typhoon, which damaged or flooded dozens of homes and vehicles, ripped off signboards and toppled scores of trees, utility poles and lampposts. A woman in the southern city of Busan died after being injured by shattered window glass. Four nuclear power reactors near Busan automatically shut down because of electricity supply issues, but no leak of radioactive materials was detected, South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety said.

Typhoon Hagibis leaves as many as 33 dead as Japan continues rescue

One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter

Helicopters, boats and thousands of troops were deployed across Japan to rescue people stranded in flooded homes Sunday, as the death toll from a ferocious typhoon climbed to as high as 33. One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter. Typhoon Hagibis made landfall south of Tokyo on Saturday evening and battered central and northern Japan with torrents of rain and powerful gusts of wind. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday.

Public broadcaster NHK said 14 rivers across the nation had flooded, some spilling out in more than one spot. The Tokyo Fire Department said a woman in her 70s was accidentally dropped 40 meters (131 feet) to the ground while being transported into a rescue helicopter in Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture, a northern area devastated by the typhoon.

Department officials held a news conference to apologize, bowing deeply and long, according to Japanese custom, and acknowledged the woman had not been strapped in properly. The government’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency, which tends to be conservative in its counts, said late Sunday that 14 people died, 11 were missing and 187 were injured as a result of the typhoon. It said 1,283 homes were flooded and 517 were damaged, partially or totally.

Japanese media tallies were higher. Kyodo News agency reported that 33 people died and 19 were missing. “The major typhoon has caused immense damage far and wide in eastern Japan,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

News footage showed a rescue helicopter hovering in a flooded area in Nagano prefecture where an embankment of the Chikuma River broke, and streams of water were continuing to spread over residential areas…

Read More: Typhoon Hagibis