Emergency Flood Warning Issued for Wakayama Pref. due to Typhoon

Tokyo, June 3 (Jiji Press)–Typhoon Jangmi made landfall on the southern part of Wakayama Prefecture around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, leading to the issuance of a Level 5 emergency flood warning for the Koza River in the western Japan prefecture. The warning was issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Wakayama prefectural government at 5:35 a.m. As flooding may have already occurred, maximum caution for inundation is needed in the Wakayama towns of Kozagawa and Kushimoto, according to authorities. The river runs through the two towns. It was the first time that the emergency flood warning has been issued since the meteorological agency and the land ministry revised their weather warning system and introduced the alert level recently. Linear precipitous zones formed in southern Wakayama and the southern part of Tokushima Prefecture in the small hours of Wednesday, and Level 5 emergency evacuation warnings requiring people to take actions immediately to protect their lives were issued for some areas of Kozagawa, Kushimoto and the city of Anan in Tokushima. Later, Level 4 urgent warnings for heavy rain, landslides or river flooding were issued for parts of the prefectures of Shizuoka, Mie, Nara and Wakayama, and residents in many areas were ordered to evacuate. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called on people in areas under emergency warnings to immediately take measures to protect themselves. She also urged government staff to figure out the extent of damage and provide the public with accurate and timely information. Typhoon Jangmi is expected to travel over the Pacific Ocean off the Kii Peninsula, where Wakayama is located, and then move off the Tokai region of central Japan later in the morning and off the Kanto eastern region in the afternoon. The meteorological agency urged people in those areas to be on high alert for landslides, flooding of low-lying areas, swollen rivers, violent winds and high waves. At 5 a.m., the sixth typhoon of this year was moving over a point near Cape Shionomisaki in Kushimoto east-northeast at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour. It had a central atmospheric pressure of 980 hectopascals, packing a maximum sustained wind speed of 25 meters per second and a maximum instantaneous wind speed of 35 meters per second. Wind speeds were 15 meters per second or faster in areas within 500 km south of the center of the typhoon and 390 km north of the center. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]