A large, very strong typhoon churned toward Japan yesterday, with the Japan Meteorological Agency warning that the storm would rip through the nation over the weekend, bringing violent winds and torrential rain.
Typhoon Trami, packing gusts of a maximum 162kph near its center, was over the Pacific Ocean, spiraling slowly toward Japan’s southern islands.
“As it is forecast to go across Japan at a high speed, we are urging people to be vigilant” in the days ahead, agency researcher Sakiko Nishioka told reporters.
The typhoon was moving northwest slowly, but was expected to turn eastward, coming very close to the islands of Okinawa and Amami today, the agency said in a statement.
“Please be on high alert against violent winds, high waves and heavy rainfall,” it said.
After dumping torrential rain on the outlying islands, the typhoon is forecast to pick up speed and approach western Japan tomorrow, remaining very strong as it barrels over Honshu.
Images from the International Space Station posted on Twitter by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst on Tuesday showed Trami’s enormous eye, which he said was “as if somebody pulled the planet’s gigantic plug.”
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways yesterday started to cancel some domestic flights, scrapping more than 100 between them to the islands.
If the forecast holds, it would be the latest in a series of extreme natural events to strike Japan.
Western parts of Japan are still recovering from Typhoon Jebi, which claimed 11 lives earlier this month.
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