At least 75 injured, man missing after Typhoon Goni wreaks havoc across southern Japan

August 2015 – JAPAN – At least 75 people have been injured and a 70-year-old man is missing after a powerful typhoon wreaked havoc across southern Japan, causing widespread disruptions to flights and train services, power outages and the evacuation of more than 200,000 households. Japan Airlines was forced to cancel about 130 flights and All Nippon Airways canceled 100 flights, mainly to and from airports in Kyushu, while some railway services, including bullet trains on the Kyushu and Sanyo shinkansen lines, were suspended temporarily. Typhoon Goni made landfall near Arao in Kumamoto Prefecture just after 6 a.m. Tuesday and reached the ocean off Kitakyushu by 10 a.m., the Meteorological Agency said.

Although now moving away from the Japanese archipelago, the typhoon is expected to bring heavy rain to western and eastern Japan through Wednesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, warning of further landslides and flooding. The 15th typhoon this year prompted the agency to issue landslide warnings for Fukuoka, Saga, Oita and Kagoshima prefectures on Kyushu, Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku and Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures on the Honshu mainland. The city of Hiroshima, which experienced a deadly landslide last August, issued an evacuation order to some 67,700 residents, the first such order since last year’s disaster.

On Tuesday, some 83,000 households in Fukuoka Prefecture were instructed to evacuate, while evacuation advisories were issued to 22,000 households in Kumamoto, and 130,000 households in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Power outages temporarily affected more than 470,000 households on Kyushu, according to Kyushu Electric Power Co. Shigetoshi Morita, 70, who drove a truck carrying newspapers, went missing in Kagoshima Prefecture. Police fear he may have been involved in a landslide early in the morning and are searching for him. More than 50 people were injured across Kyushu with other injuries reported in western and central Japan. –Japan Times

Ten killed in the Philippines: One of the twin typhoons in the Pacific has claimed its first casualties, killing 10 people in the Philippines and forcing the evacuation of almost 13,000 people, authorities said Saturday. Typhoon Goni, known as Ineng in the archipelago country, delivered its deadly blows in the islands’ Mountain Province, Benguet and Ilocos Norte, authorities reported. Goni and Typhoon Atsani made for a startling image in a satellite photograph this week. Goni unleashed a load of havoc: nine floods, eight landslides, two tornadoes and a collapsed bridge in the Philippines. At least three people remained missing and at least seven people were injured, authorities there said. As of Sunday morning, the storm had weakened slightly and had 86 mph sustained winds, with gusts of up to 106 mph.

The eye of Goni was 164 miles northeast of the Philippines’ far-flung northern province of Batanes and is projected to continue on its path to clip Taiwan, according to Philippine authorities and the Pacific Disaster Center. The only projected landfall for Goni is the Japanese Ryuku Islands and Japan’s southern mainland, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said. Meanwhile, Typhoon Atsani continue to twirl over open waters in the Pacific at 92 mph winds and 115 mph gusts, but it isn’t projected to strike any land, the Pacific Disaster Center said Saturday.

Twin typhoons are common in the western Pacific, occurring several times a year, but two super typhoons at the same time would be rare event, Miller said. Atsani was categorized earlier this week as a super typhoon with winds of 155 mph gusting to 186 mph, but has since been downgraded to a typhoon, according to the Pacific Disaster Center. –CNN