Seemorerocks: Typhoon Hagibis hits Japan

Historic Typhoon Devastates

Japan; Millions Told To

Evacuate Amid Flooding,

Widespread Outages

12 October, 2019

The largest typhoon in recorded history of Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture caused widespread flooding, power outages and destruction on Saturday, as local authorities warned over 7 million people to evacuate, according to Bloomberg (with other sources quoting figures ranging from 1-4 million).

*Damaged houses in Ichihara, Chiba, on Oct. 12. Source: Jiji Press/AFP via Getty Images*

The sky turned brilliant purple right before Hagibis hit.

According to the Japan Times, Typhoon Hagibis was downgraded to "strong" just prior to landfall, however "as of 8 p.m., it was still packing sustained winds of 144 kph and gusts of 198 kph. The storm is forecast to travel over Kanto region and then north into Tohoku region before moving into the Pacific."

"A typhoon of an unprecedented scale is about to hit Kanto. I’d like you to take actions to protect your own life," said Tokyo Gov. Kuriko Koike in an emergency news conference.

Dozens of rivers in the Tokyo region saw waters rise to dangerous levels on Saturday, while upstream dams are set to release water due to the heavy rains according to NHK. One of the largest rivers in the region, the Tama, has already begun to overflow into the residential district of Setagaya, per the land ministry.

"If we leave this situation unattended, the dam would collapse and more than 60 million tons of water would be unleashed at once," said Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa while announcing that the Shiroyama Dam in Sagamihara was scheduled to release water at 10 p.m.

More than 100 rivers were at risk of overflowing, including the Arakawa River in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, the Karasawa River in Saitama Prefecture and Koito River in Chiba Prefecture.

The Tama River running between Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture began to overflow into the Tamagawa area of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward at around 10:30 p.m. The area is better known as Futako-Tamagawa.

The Chikuma River flooded in the city of Ueda and the city of Nagano, both in Nagano Prefecture, as did the Minami-Asakawa River in Hachioji and the Nariki River in Ome, both in Tokyo. -Japan Times