(Adnkronos) – Four dead and six missing is the toll from Typhoon Dujuan which hit eastern Japan and Tokyo, forcing 1.9 million people to evacuate their homes and move to shelters, and hundreds of planes to remain grounded. The Japanese public broadcaster Nhk reports this, explaining that the victims were caused by landslides that occurred in Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures. Authorities had issued an alert for an ”imminent threat to life” due to torrential rains and very strong winds at 130 km/h, with gusts up to 194 km/h.
As local media report, extreme weather conditions have left 50,000 people without electricity. Most evacuation orders were lifted today, as the storm moved away from Japan’s east coast. Dujuan, the twenty-fifth typhoon of the year in Japan, is the latest in a series of Pacific storms, intensified by the “super El Nino” which has warmed the Ocean, favoring the formation of storms.
Typhoon Dujuan hit Japan in the middle of a five-day holiday, forcing the cancellation of numerous events. Concerts scheduled for yesterday at the Rock in Japan music festival were canceled, as was the Tokyo Game Show, a video game fair.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi expressed her condolences, in a post on X, to the victims of the typhoon, before announcing that she would proceed with her trip to the United States as planned. “With a sense of urgency, I have instructed Chief Cabinet Secretary Takehara and Minister Hosono to respond with the utmost readiness,” she wrote, before stating that she had boarded a flight to the United States. In the coming hours, the Japanese premier will speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and meet with United States President Donald Trump.
