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Tokyo: A “Very strong” typhoon Strong winds and heavy rains battered Japan’s Pacific coast on Friday (August 16), causing hundreds of flights and train cancellations in the Tokyo area and leaving more than 2,000 homes without power.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said Typhoon Ampir was about 170 kilometers south of Tokyo and moving northeast, with gusts of up to 216 kilometers per hour.
The eye of the typhoon is not expected to make landfall, but instead move northeast along the coast of Honshu, bypassing the Tokyo area, which has a population of about 40 million, before returning to the Pacific Ocean starting Saturday.
The Japan Meteorological Agency rated the weather system as “very strong”, one level below the highest level “violent typhoon”, with maximum wind speeds of 195 km/h.
The agency warned people to “be on high alert for severe storms, tsunamis, landslides, flooding in low-lying areas and river flooding.”
The risk of heavy rain-related disasters will increase in the Kanto region around Tokyo as of Friday night and in the northern Tohoku region as of Saturday morning, the statement said.
The U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h in the coastal Chiba region east of the capital by 3 a.m. Saturday (18:00 GMT Friday).
More than 18,000 people in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo were advised to evacuate, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said in a statement.
As of Friday afternoon, about 2,000 households in prefectures neighboring Tokyo, mainly Chiba, were without power due to the typhoon, according to utility operators.
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