Powerful Typhoon Shanshan makes landfall in Kyushu

The extremely powerful Typhoon Shanshan made landfall near the city of Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, at around 8 a.m. on Thursday.
When it made landfall, the typhoon, referred to as Typhoon No. 10 by the weather agency, was moving at 15 kph, with a central pressure reading of 955 hectopascals and maximum sustained wind speeds of 144 kph — and gusts reaching up to 216 kph.
In Kagoshima Prefecture, excluding the Amami region, an emergency storm warning and an emergency high tide warning remain in place, while the city of Satsumasendai is also under an emergency storm surge.
A linear precipitation zone — or a band of cumulonimbus clouds — has developed in Oita, Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures due to the slow-moving storm, leading to prolonged heavy rain in the same area, where the weather agency has issued warnings of heavy rainfall.
The town of Misato in Miyazaki Prefecture recorded 697 millimeters of rainfall in the past 48 hours, well over the total amount that it receives on average during the entire month of August. The village of Maeda in Kagoshima Prefecture saw 555 mm, which amounts to 1.9 times the village’s average total rainfall for the month.
Heavy rain is expected to continue across much of the nation, even in areas far from the storm, with parts of southern Kyushu forecast to see 600 mm of rain over the next 24 hours, while parts of north Kyushu and the Shikoku region are expected to see 400 mm.
Level 4 evacuation orders are currently issued in parts of Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Oita, Kumamoto, Ehime, Aichi and Shizuoka, either due to the risk of heavy rainfall, flooding or landslides.
Aichi and Shizuoka remain far from the storm’s center, but outer bands of the powerful typhoon have already brought severe weather to the area.
A Level 4 evacuation order was issued for 14 households in the Okuko area of Gamagori, Aichi Prefecture, on Wednesday morning, after a landslide in the city trapped five family members. Two of those trapped had been rescued by early Wednesday evening while three were confirmed dead in the landslide.
The island village of Mishima in Kagoshima remains under a Level 5 emergency warning — the rarely issued highest level — impacting 369 people across 202 households. The alert level warns of a life-threatening situation and urges residents to take action to protect themselves immediately, even if they can no longer evacuate safely.
“To protect your life and the lives of your loved ones, please flee to evacuation areas specified by local authorities and secure your safety,” Satoshi Sugimoto, an official at the weather agency, said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.
“Storms, tidal waves and storm surges like never experienced before are to be expected and will require the utmost caution,” Sugimoto said at an earlier news conference.
According to NHK, the city of Miyazaki received over 160 reports of damage due to the typhoon from noon on Wednesday through to 6:00 a.m. Thursday. About 70% of the damage was caused by strong winds, the public broadcaster said, with 22 injuries also reported. Most of the injuries were caused by broken windowpanes and all of them were not life-threatening.
Transportation networks across the southwestern and western part of the country were suspended or reduced on Thursday due to the storm, with shinkansen trains in Kyushu suspended for most of Thursday and suspensions also planned for the Sanyo Shinkansen, which connects Osaka and Fukuoka.
The Tokaido Shinkansen could experience similar disruptions from Friday into Saturday. The line saw periodic outages on Wednesday as heavy rain hit the Tokai region.
Air travel has been hit hard as well, with thousands of passengers affected by cancellations.