Typhoon Wipha (pictured above) recently swept through the Tokyo area, causing damage and even killing one person in the heavily populated city. The biggest cause for concern was on the small island of Oshima, located 75 miles south of Tokyo, which had 29 confirmed deaths in the area and 15 people reported missing. Heavy rainfall caused flooding and landslides that stropped transportation and basically crushed entire houses along the hills of Oshima. Residents need to prepare themselves though, because it appears the worst is not yet over.
Typhoon Francisco is on its way from the south and will appear to run along the east coast of Japan. Originally, this storm was not supposed to be a major problem. Francisco, although still a strong storm, is much weaker than Wipha was. It looks like this storm is going to be much more of a problem now that Typhoon Lekima looks like it will collide with Francisco and disrupt its path. It originally looked like Francisco would move slowly past Japan and out into the north Pacific but now it will likely linger longer over the Izu island chain south of Tokyo and dump heavy rain on the area for much longer than expected (explained further in graphic below).
The stronger winds from Lekima will push Francisco from the east and prevent it from moving along. The increased rainfall will undoubtedly cause conditions for more landslides in the area. Thankfully, Japan is used to storms like this and their proactive government is already planning to evacuate a few hundred people. If this was a much less developed country, the process for evacuating many people would be a much more difficult undertaking for their governments. We just have to hope that by Thursday, when the storms are projected to enter the area, some of their power dissipates or they change their coarse to cause less rainfall than is expected. If not, lets hope everyone can get out of the area in time because when large mudslides begin to happen it may be too late.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment