Strong Typhoon Leaves 13 Dead, 50 Missing on Tokyo Island

Tokyo, Oct. 16 (Jiji Press)--Typhoon Wipha battered eastern Japan with heavy rain and strong winds on Wednesday morning, killing at least 13 people on a Tokyo island and disrupting metropolitan area transportation during the commuting hours. On the Tokyo island of Izuoshima in the Pacific, 13 people have been confirmed dead and about 50 people are missing as a few dozen houses are believed to have collapsed, according to police sources. In Machida, a western suburb of Tokyo, a woman was swept away by a swollen river and was later confirmed dead. According to data provided by the National Police Agency, a total of 14 people were injured including in Toyama, Tochigi, Chiba, Fukushima and Shizuoka prefectures. In the town of Ninomiya, Kanagawa Prefecture, two 12-year-old boys went missing after being carried away by high waves while they were playing near the Pacific coast. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed government agencies to collect information on the damage caused by the powerful typhoon, ensure speedy rescue operations in affected areas and start work to restore damaged vital infrastructure. The Metropolitan Police Department decided to send some 60 personnel, including members of a special disaster rescue team, to Izuoshima, where many other people are feared to be buried by mudslides. This is the first major disaster-relief mission for the team, which was set up last year. The Tokyo Fire Department also mobilized a rescue team. At the request of Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose, the Defense Ministry dispatched Ground Self-Defense Force troops to the island. Hit by record rainfalls, a lot of houses in the Motomachi and Kandachi districts on the islands were washed away by floods and buried in mud after a mudslide stopped a river, officials of the Oshima town government said, adding that the local government is unable to reach at least 50 residents. The municipal government alerted residents after the river overflowed, but did not issue an evacuation advisory, according to sources. In many places on the eastern part of the Honshu main island, passenger railway operators including East Japan Railway Co. <9020>, or JR East, suspended or reduced train services, including on the Tokaido and other Shinkansen lines. Odakyu Electric Railway Co. <9007> saw underground rail tracks submerged near Shimokitazawa Station in Setagaya Ward in central Tokyo. Japan Airlines <9201> and All Nippon Airways canceled more than 400 flights, affecting over 60,000 passengers. The typhoon, the 26th of this year, traveled off the Pacific coast of the Kanto eastern region including Tokyo and the Tohoku northeastern region on Wednesday morning. At noon (3 a.m. GMT), the typhoon was 190 kilometers southeast of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan, traveling north-northeast at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour. Its central atmospheric pressure stood at 960 hectopascals. Near the center of the typhoon, the maximum instantaneous wind speed was 50 meters per second. On Izuoshima, the maximum rainfall reached 122.5 millimeters in the hour to around 3:50 a.m. and 824.0 millimeters during the 24 hours to 8:20 a.m., both record highs on the islet. The maximum hourly rainfall in central Tokyo on Wednesday morning was 49.5 millimeters. The maximum instantaneous wind speed since the small hours of Wednesday reached 46.1 meters per second at Choshi, Chiba Prefecture, 44.7 meters on the Tokyo island of Hachijojima, and 36.7 meters in the town of Nagi in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan. END