Wild Monster typhoon continues lashing Japan, three dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Wild Monster typhoon continues lashing Japan, three dead*
July 15, 2007 02:18pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
ONE of the most powerful storms in decades is heading towards Tokyo
after killing three people and forcing several thousand more residents
to evacuate their homes.
Typhoon Man-yi lashed the main southern and southwestern islands of
Kyushu and Shikoku yesterday, leaving three people dead and another
missing, officials said.
Seventy-one people also suffered storm-related injuries over a wide area
from southern to central Japan, public broadcaster NHK said.
Packing winds of up to 162km per hour, Man-yi was moving northeast
towards Tokyo and was about 300km from the capital by mid-morning, the
meteorological agency said.
An 11-year-old boy and a 76-year-old man drowned in separate incidents
as the typhoon made landfall and wreaked havoc on Kyushu's Kagoshima
prefecture yesterday, municipal officials said.
A 79-year-old man was also drowned in a river in the southwestern
prefecture of Tokushima.
One person was missing in central Nagoya.
"Police got a telephone call saying somebody in a river was clinging to
weeds on the bank. That person was washed away during the call," a local
official said.
The storm is the worst to hit Japan in July since records began in 1951.
It has lost strength slightly from its peak but the Japanese weather
agency urged residents to be alert for torrential rain, mudslides and
flooding.
The storm has paralysed Japan's air transportation, stranding tens of
thousands of passengers, including US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill,
who is visiting Japan on the start of his Asian tour ahead of six-nation
negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear program.