TOKYO — Typhoon Hagibis swirled toward Japan on Friday, as cities across the country opened evacuation centers and forecasters issued extreme weather warnings for multiple prefectures along the country’s eastern coast.
At a news conference Friday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency warned that Hagibis could be as strong as the Kanogawa Typhoon that hit Shizuoka Prefecture and the Tokyo region in 1958, killing more than 1,200 people.
The agency warned that the southeastern Tokai region of Japan could be deluged by up to 31 inches of rain in a 24-hour period over the weekend.
[Climate change fills storms with more rain, an analysis shows.]
Japan Railways said it would suspend service throughout the Tokyo region all day Saturday and that bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka and Osaka and Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu, would be suspended from Saturday morning.
All Nippon Airways canceled all its domestic and international flights from Tokyo airports on Saturday, and Japan Airlines said it was canceling flights from multiple airports across Tokyo, Osaka, Sendai and others throughout the country.
In Chiba Prefecture, which was hardest hit by a typhoon that caused severe damage last month, several municipalities opened evacuation centers. As of Friday midday, residents had not yet sought cover, although 44 people who left their homes last month during Typhoon Faxai were still living in shelters. The central government said it would dispatch officials and power supply vehicles from disaster assistance agencies to the area.
Experts said that Chiba, where about 900,000 people lost power in September, would be particularly vulnerable as it had not yet recovered from Typhoon Faxai, and many buildings that were partly damaged during that storm could be destroyed this time around.
“Residents need to make early decisions to evacuate,” said Hiroyuki Yamada, an associate professor of meteorology at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa. “The buildings are already damaged and may collapse even with weaker winds.”
Hisako Ueno and Makiko Inoue contributed reporting.
