TOKYO
\nThousands of people took refuge in shelters in southwestern Japan on Sunday as powerful Typhoon Nanmadol churned towards the region, prompting authorities to urge over four million residents to evacuate.
\nThe Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has issued a rare \u201cspecial warning\u201d for the Kagoshima and Miyazaki regions in Kyushu prefecture \u2014 an alert that is issued only when it forecasts conditions seen once in several decades.
\nBy Sunday morning, heavy rain and high winds lashed the area on Japan\u2019s southern island, with nearly 98,000 households in Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Miyazaki already without power.
\nTrains, flights and ferry runs were cancelled until the passage of the storm, and even some convenience stores (generally open all hours and considered a lifeline in disasters) were shutting their doors.
\n\u201cPlease stay away from dangerous places, and please evacuate if you feel even the slightest hint of danger,\u201d Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted after convening a government meeting on the storm.
\n\u201cIt will be dangerous to evacuate at night. Please move to safety while it\u2019s still light outside,\u201d he added.
\nThe JMA has warned the region could face \u201cunprecedented\u201d danger from high winds, storm surges and torrential rain.
\n\u201cMaximum caution is required,\u201d Ryuta Kurora, head of the JMA\u2019s forecast unit said on Saturday. \u201cIt\u2019s a very dangerous typhoon\u201d.
\n\u201cThe wind will be so fierce that some houses might collapse,\u201d Kurora told reporters, also warning of flooding and landslides.
\nNational broadcaster NHK, which collates local warnings, said more than four million people across Kyushu were issued evacuation warnings, with officials in Kagoshima and Miyazaki saying over 15,000 people were in local shelters by Sunday afternoon.
\nThe evacuation warnings call on people to move to shelters or alternative accommodation that can withstand extreme weather.
\nBut they are not mandatory, and during past extreme weather events authorities have struggled to convince residents to take shelter quickly enough.
\nKurora urged people to evacuate before the worst of the storm arrived and warned that even in sturdy buildings residents would need to take precautions.
\n\u201cPlease move into sturdy buildings before violent winds start to blow and stay away from windows even inside sturdy buildings,\u201d he told a late-night press conference.
\nBy Sunday morning, bullet train operations in the area were halted, and NHK said hundreds of flights had been cancelled.
\n\u201cThe southern part of the Kyushu region may see the sort of violent wind, high waves and high tides that have never been experienced before,\u201d the JMA said on Sunday, urging residents to exercise \u201cthe highest caution possible\u201d.
\nOn the ground, an official in Kagoshima\u2019s Izumi city said conditions were deteriorating rapidly.
\n\u201cThe wind has become extremely strong. Rain is falling hard too,\u201d he told AFP. \u201cIt\u2019s a total white-out outside. Visibility is almost zero.\u201d
\nOn the coast in Kyushu\u2019s Minamata city, fishing boats tied up for safety bobbed on the waves, as spray from the sea and bands of rain sluiced the boardwalk.
\nAs of 1pm (0400 GMT), the typhoon was located above tiny Yakushima island, packing gusts up to 234 kilometres (146 miles) per hour.
\nIt is expected to make landfall in Kyushu on Sunday evening, before turning northeast and sweeping up across Japan\u2019s main island through early Wednesday.
\nJapan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.
\nIn 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people.
\nA year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, killing 14 people.
\nAnd in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country\u2019s annual rainy season.
\nScientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO Thousands of people took refuge in shelters in southwestern Japan on Sunday as powerful Typhoon Nanmadol churned towards the region, prompting authorities to urge over four million residents to evacuate. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has issued a rare \u201cspecial warning\u201d for the Kagoshima and Miyazaki regions in Kyushu prefecture \u2014 an alert that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-284258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n