Nearly a million people in Japan were ordered to evacuate, and Toyota shuttered all its factories on Wednesday afternoon as the country braced for Typhoon Shanshan to approach the mainland, with the authorities warning that it could produce a large-scale disaster.
Japanese officials issued rare emergency warnings for the powerful storm as it churned toward the country’s southwest, bringing torrential rain and hurricane-force winds.
The emergency warnings were issued for storms and high waves in Kagoshima Prefecture. They are the highest category of warnings possible in Japan and are usually only issued once every few decades, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. With a risk of tornadoes in the prefecture on Thursday morning, the agency cautioned people to pay attention to the sky and move inside sturdy buildings.
The storm was moving north on Thursday morning near southern Kyushu, one of Japan’s main islands, according to the meteorological agency.
It may make landfall in Kyushu by Friday, the agency said. But Shanshan’s slow pace means it will lash some areas with relentless rain for hours, elevating threats of flooding. In southern Kyushu, there was a risk of record-breaking strong winds, high waves, high tides, and heavy rain, the agency warned.
The authorities warned that wind speeds could strengthen and topple some homes, and that the rain could cause flash flooding and landslides. The authorities issued evacuation orders for about 990,000 people across southern, western and central Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Parts of the country far from the typhoon, mainly in western Japan and the Pacific Ocean side of eastern Japan, were experiencing heavy rain and thunder early on Thursday morning because of the storm, forecasters said.
Toyota announced that it would pause production at all 14 of its Japan factories overnight, starting Wednesday evening, to protect the safety of its workers. Shiro Tachimoto, a company representative, said the company would reassess on Thursday morning whether to keep the factories closed or reopen them.
In Aichi Prefecture in central Japan, a man and a woman died after a landslide hit their family’s house, the public broadcaster NHK reported on Thursday.
Eight cities and towns, mostly on the Amami Islands, had ordered residents to evacuate, NHK reported. More than 115,000 customers were without power in Kyushu on Thursday morning, the Kyushu Electric Power Transmission and Distribution company said. The utility said that it had set up a disaster team to respond to the outages.
Japan Airlines said that it had canceled some Wednesday flights that had been scheduled to arrive or depart from some airports in central Japan, including Osaka Kansai Airport, one of the country’s largest. All Nippon Airlines, the country’s largest airline, said it had canceled some Friday flights at Osaka airport.
Japan’s high-speed rail network, the Shinkansen, suspended some trains on Wednesday, and its operators warned that services could be disrupted into the weekend. Toll and expressway operators lifted some earlier closures but warned residents to check traffic information this week before traveling. Postal services were also disrupted at some counters on Wednesday, according to Japan Post, and cellphone services were down in parts of the Kagoshima Prefecture, according to one provider.
The powerful storm had sustained winds of up to 109 miles per hour on Thursday, equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane, according to the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center. In some cities in central and eastern Japan, up to 10 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour window from Tuesday into Wednesday. Some cities in Japan saw winds of up to 86 miles per hour, equivalent to those of a Category 1 hurricane.
The typhoon slowed overnight as it approached the Amami Islands. At some point, after moving northwest along the coast during the day Thursday, the storm will likely turn back east. However, precisely when or where that will occur remains unclear.
Heavy rain is expected to continue after Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency, said, when the region could see a record-breaking 39 inches of rain, mainly in southern Kyushu.
Japan last issued emergency warnings for Typhoon Nanmadol, a 2022 storm that brought torrential rain and landslides to Kyushu. More than eight million people were ordered to evacuate.
The start of the Pacific typhoon season this year has seen a lower number of tropical storms than average, in part because of the La Niña weather pattern that is predicted to arrive later this summer, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
La Niña, which is defined by cooler equatorial sea surface temperatures, typically increases wind shear — changes in wind speed and direction — in the central Pacific region, which makes it harder for storms to develop, the Weather Service said in May.
Isabella Kwai , Judson Jones and Amanda Holpuch contributed reporting.
