The death toll from heavy rain and flooding caused by Typhoon Megi climbed to nine in Japan and three in South Korea yesterday, while 134 Japanese children on a cram-school camp were stranded in a mountain village, police said.
The bodies of two women were found in a swollen river in Kagawa prefecture, some 550km west of Tokyo yesterday, bringing the total number of the storm's victims in Japan since Tuesday to nine.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"We believe it is the body of a 72-year-old woman and her 45-year-old daughter ... who went missing after a flash flood hit the shelter where they were taking refuge," a local police spokesman said.
Three other people, aged between 74 and 84, were also found dead in Kagawa on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In the mountain village of Okawa in Kochi prefecture, about 170 people, including 134 schoolchildren aged 11 and 12, remained confined to a lodge where they were attending an examination cram school, cut off since Tuesday as heavy rain washed away all the roads to it.
In neighboring Ehime prefecture, a 78-year-old-man was found dead on Wednesday after being swept into an irrigation ditch, while on Tuesday a 74-year-old man was found dead in an overflowing irrigation channel.
Two more deaths were confirmed late on Wednesday in Ehime.
The heavy rainfall caused by Typhoon Megi was expected to continue through yesterday, the Meteorological Agency said.
The agency has warned of torrential rain, flooding and violent winds for southwestern Japan.
South Korea
Typhoon Megi killed three people on the southwest tip of South Korea and left two missing, emergency officials said yesterday.
The typhoon first hit South Korea on Wednesday, bringing heavy rains and leaving more than 2,400 people homeless, said Park Min-ju, an official at the country's disaster agency. More than 1,200 homes were flooded or destroyed.
One 47-year-old man was killed while working near a dam and a 65-year-old woman was walking on a bridge over a brook when she was swept away by the flood, said Kang Chung, another emergency official. Another 69-year-old man also was killed, but no details were available.
Missing were a 74-year-old man apparently swept away while working on a farm in Naju city, about 280km south of Seoul, and another 42-year-old man, Kang said.
All the casualties were in southwestern Cholla province.
The heavy weather also shut down seven airports and caused the cancelation of 41 domestic flights.
Bangladesh
Meanwhile, the UN Development Program is considering building floating homes in Bangladesh following the worst flooding in years to strike this low-lying country, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
Inspired by the floating dwellings of Vietnam, the houses would float permanently on a raft made of bamboo, reducing the impact of floods that regularly hit Bangladesh.
The proposal is one of eight by French architects Patrick Coulombel and Christian Coombes, commissioned by the UN body to come up with simple cost-effective solutions to flood-proof homes.
The country was devastated by flooding that also hit India and Nepal last month, washing away homes, destroying crops and livelihoods and killing more than 1,950 people across South Asia, including at least 726 in Bangladesh.
If adopted, the proposals would form part of a post-flood rehabilitation program funded by money raised from a US$210 million appeal launched last week by the UN.
Other solutions suggested by the architects, who are representatives of the organization Emergency Architects, include building homes on earth embankments and the construction of temporary floors above the level of the floodwater.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS