Shibushi: A powerful typhoon pummelled Japan’s southern island of Okinawa on Saturday, injuring at least 17, as weather officials warned the storm would rip through the Japanese archipelago over the weekend. Typhoon Trami, packing maximum gusts of 216 kph near its centre, was forecast to hit the mainland early on Sunday and cause extreme weather across the country into Monday.
TV footage showed branches ripped from trees by strong winds blocking a main street in the regional capital Naha, as well as torrential horizontal rain and massive waves splashing over breakwaters on a remote island in the area. Local policemen in rain jackets wielding chainsaws were battling the furious wind to remove fallen trees. The gusts were strong enough to overturn a truck and smash the glass windows of a bank.
Some 700 people were evacuated to shelters in Okinawa and electricity was cut to nearly 200,000 homes, public broadcaster NHK said. At least 386 flights were cancelled, mainly in western Japan, according to NHK. West Japan Railway said it would suspend all services in the Osaka region and cancel some Shinkansen bullet trains by noon on Sunday. Seventeen people suffered minor injuries in storm-related accidents in Okinawa and several houses suffered damage but no one was feared dead, local officials said.
“The number may rise further as we are in the middle of sorting out figures,” said Masatsune Miyazato, an official at the island’s disaster-management office. “People in Okinawa are used to typhoons but we are urging them to stay vigilant,” he said.
385 die, thousands hurt in Indonesia quakes, tsunami
Jakarta: Rescue workers were hunting for survivors on Saturday after earthquakes, including a powerful 7.5 magnitude tremor, and tsunami struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, killing at least 385 people. The death toll was expected to rise amid continuing aftershocks, officials said.