Japan Alerts 5 Million People To Evacuate Homes as Typhoon Hagibi Nears Tokyo

Tokyo: Japanese authorities have issued highest level of emergency rainfall advices for Tokyo and some other many neighboring prefectures on Saturday.

They also have advised over five million people to evacuate their apartments to stay safe from expected landslides and flooding; as city had an experience most severe typhoon in decades threatened the capital.

AN announcement has been issued by the Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA), Typhoon Hagibis is possibly to make landfall near Tokyo on Saturday evening.

The storm has already interrupted the Rugby World Cup as two games just outside Tokyo canceled on Saturday, and is threatening Sunday’s Formula One Grand Prix in Suzuka.

Hagibis has also frightened to one of the most closely populated cities, in the world with rivers in and around Tokyo already on the brink of breaking open.

Residents of Tokyo as well as its nearby have been advised to prepare themselves and mobile phones issued a series of siren-style alerts on Saturday afternoon caution of steadily rising risks of flooding and mudslides.

Hagibis (which means “speed” in the Philippine language Tagalog) warnings by JMA a day before that it could be more intense as a 1958 typhoon that brought huge destruction including  more than 1,200 people’s death in Tokyo and elsewhere in the nation.

Most dangerous storm weakened slightly as it hit Japan on Saturday although the winds still approaches 100 mph at its center by 4 p.m. (0700 GMT), with gusts up to 136 mph, announcing it the equivalent of a Level 2 hurricane on the U.S. Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale.

It has also been reported some part of main island of Honshu, Japan, is already experiencing strong winds and record-breaking rains.

Nonetheless, Level 5 warning for heavy rainfall by the JMA on Saturday afternoon for locations of central and eastern Japan, involving that floods and landslides may already have happened. It is also giving a straight clue to locals don’t wait more to take steps to protect lives.

Hagibis have been caused of 11 people injuries, and a death of a man in his fifties at what time his car overturned in high winds in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo on Saturday morning.