Shanshan, one of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades, leaves heavy destruction in its wake

Shanshan, one of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades, leaves heavy destruction in its wake
A worker removes debris blown away by strong winds caused by Typhoon Shanshan in Miyazaki on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 30 August 2024
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Shanshan, one of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades, leaves heavy destruction in its wake

Shanshan, one of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades, leaves heavy destruction in its wake
  • At least 5 people confirmed dead and over 80 injured on Kyushu island and millions of residents told to evacuate
  • Miyazaki city was hit hard, with heavy floods plus powerful winds knocking down trees, throwing cars from parking lots and shattering windows of some buildings

OITA, Japan: One of Japan’s strongest typhoons in decades dumped torrential rain across southern regions on Thursday, leaving at least five people dead and injuring dozens, local media reported, as authorities warned millions to seek higher ground due to possible flooding and landslides.

Typhoon Shanshan packed gusts of up to 252 kilometers (157 miles) per hour as it smashed into Japan’s main southern island of Kyushu early Thursday, making it the most powerful storm this year and one of the strongest at landfall since 1960.

The storm then weakened, with maximum gusts of 162 kph at 5:00 p.m. (0800 GMT), the weather office said, but it was still dumping heavy rain across Kyushu and beyond as it moved slowly toward the main island of Honshu.

Five people have been found dead in the storm, Jiji Press reported, including a man whose two-story home collapsed in Tokushima Prefecture.

The storm ripped through downtown Miyazaki city on Kyushu, knocking down trees, throwing cars to the side in parking lots and shattering windows of some buildings. The prefectural disaster management task force said about 50 buildings were damaged.  Miyazaki was littered with debris from nearly 200 damaged buildings.

NHK public television showed a swollen river in the popular hot spring town of Yufu in Oita prefecture, just north of Miyazaki, with muddy water splashing against a bridge.

More than 80 people were injured across Kyushu, mostly in Miyazaki and Kagoshima. Some were injured by being thrown to the ground by the storm on their way to shelters, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

About 168,000 households were without power across Kyushu, most of them in Kagoshima prefecture, Kyushu Electric Power Co. said.

About 20,000 people took shelter at municipal community centers, school gymnasiums and other facilities across Kyushu, according to prefectural reports.

Ahead of the storm’s arrival, heavy rain triggered a landslide that buried a house in the central city of Gamagori, killing three residents and injuring two others, the city’s disaster management department said.

On the southern island of Amami, which Shanshan passed, one person was injured by being knocked down by a wind gust while riding a motorcycle, the fire agency said.

Weather and government officials are concerned about extensive damage as the storm slowly sweeps up the Japanese archipelago to the northeast over the next few days, threatening more floods and landslides.

In the Tokyo region, Shinkansen bullet trains connecting Tokyo and Osaka were suspended starting Thursday evening due to heavy rain in the central region. Bullet train service also was to be suspended in parts of the western and central regions on Friday.

Disaster Management Minister Yoshifumi Matsumura said Shanshan could cause “unprecedented” levels of violent winds, high waves, storm surges and heavy rain. At a task force meeting on Wednesday, he urged people, especially older adults, not to hesitate and take shelter whenever there is any safety concern.

Hundreds of domestic flights connecting southwestern cities and islands were canceled Thursday, and bullet trains and some local train services were suspended.

As the storm headed northeast, similar steps were taken in parts of the main island of Honshu that were experiencing heavy rain. Postal and delivery services were suspended in the Kyushu region, and supermarkets and other stores planned to close.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned that “the risk of a disaster due to heavy rain can rapidly escalate in western Japan as Friday approaches.”

Authorities issued their highest alert in several areas of the country, with more than five million people advised to evacuate, although it was unclear how many did.

Kunisaki city in the Oita region of Kyushu warned inhabitants to “evacuate to a safe place or higher place such as the second floor of your house” because of the risk of flooding.

Rains turned rivers into raging torrents while winds smashed windows and blew tiles off roofs. TV images showed flooded roads and power lines being repaired.

Some parts of Miyazaki prefecture saw record rains for August, with the town of Mizato recording a staggering 791.5 millimeters (31 inches) in 48 hours, the JMA said.

Worried student Aoi Nishimoto, 18, said he had called his family in Miyazaki to see if they were safe.

“Our home is fine, but there was a tornado in Miyazaki and power went out in some places,” he told AFP in Kyushu’s main city of Fukuoka.

“This year, I am away from my parents’ home for the first time. So it’s a bit scary being all alone,” fellow student Rio Ohtsuru, 19, told AFP.

“Maybe I will look for a flashlight in case of a power outage,” she said.

Kyushu’s utility operator said 187,010 houses were without power elsewhere on the island.

Shanshan comes in the wake of Typhoon Ampil, which dumped heavy rain that disrupted hundreds of flights and trains this month but caused only minor injuries and damage.

Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released last month.

Another released by World Weather Attribution (WWA) on Thursday said that climate change turbocharged Typhoon Gaemi, which killed dozens of people across the Philippines, Taiwan and China this year.

In the city of Usa, retiree Fukashi Oishi looked forlornly at an old tree opposite his house that was already mature when he was a child but had snapped and fallen on the road.

“Oh, it’s so sad,” he told AFP.

Auto giant Toyota suspended production at all 14 of its factories in Japan.

Nissan and Honda also halted operations at their Kyushu plants, as did chipmakers including Tokyo Electron, reports said.

Kyushu is a hub for the semiconductor industry, with chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company opening a plant there in February.

Japan Airlines and ANA canceled more than 1,000 domestic flights and four international flights for Thursday and Friday, affecting more than 44,000 passengers.

Rail operators suspended most Shinkansen bullet trains between Kyushu’s Hakata and Tokyo, and said services would be disrupted elsewhere on Friday.

 


Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine

Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
Updated 28 October 2024
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Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine

Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
  • The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns”

MOSCOW: Russian state media said on Monday that Moscow’s forces fighting in Ukraine had successfully extracted a US citizen from eastern Ukraine who had secretly helped them target Ukraine for at least two years.
State media published a picture of the purported American in civilian clothing embracing a group of what looked like Russian special forces wearing combat uniforms. His face was blurred out in the photograph.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the Russian reports which cited Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as saying they were calling the American “Kenneth M.”
The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns.”
Russian media cast the man as “The Quiet American” after the 1955 novel by Graham Greene which tells the story of early US involvement in Vietnam through the adventures of a British journalist and an American agent.
Russian forces in the Donetsk region were quoted as saying that Russian special forces and army units had spirited the American out of eastern Ukraine and that he had been supplying Russia with “valuable intelligence” for two years.
Russian media said he had supplied information that had allowed the Russian military to “execute precision strikes against the enemy.”
“The life of the rescued American is not in danger,” Rusisan-backed forces in Donetsk were cited as saying. “The issue of granting political asylum and becoming a citizen of Russia is being resolved.”


Inside the secret train evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers

Inside the secret train evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers
Updated 47 min 17 sec ago
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Inside the secret train evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers

Inside the secret train evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers
  • Blue-and-yellow carriages of this train operated by the military are carrying wounded soldiers to hospitals away from the precarious front line

UKRAINE: It looks like an ordinary train waiting to depart an ordinary station, but through its fogged windows, a Ukrainian serviceman with face injuries lies stretched out on a gurney.
All of the other blue-and-yellow carriages of this train operated by the military are carrying wounded soldiers to hospitals away from the precarious front line.
Nearly three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, many medical facilities in war-battered eastern Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed, while those left untouched are overcrowded.
For Oleksandr, the army doctor overseeing the evacuation, there are clear benefits to rail: many people can be moved at once and it is safer than transporting wounded soldiers by helicopter, given Russian superiority in Ukraine’s airspace.
But there are risks too.
“Our adversary in the war does not distinguish between what’s medical and military, so we take certain security measures,” the 46-year-old said.
AFP was recently granted rare media access to the train, whose points of departure and arrival are not being disclosed for security reasons.
Inside the secret train
Ambulances arrived at the station carrying dozens of wounded troops who were then hauled onto the train on stretchers and settled on beds with floral-patterned sheets.
Ukrainian flags and hand-drawn pictures by children annotated with patriotic messages lined the walls inside the train.
The carriages resemble a hospital until the train rolls away from the platform and gently rocks patients and staff — and everything else inside — as it crawls farther from the front.
“We do everything on the move, everything. Starting from the usual intravenous injections, ending with incubations,” said Viktorya, a nurse dressed in khaki and wearing blue medical gloves.
“We get dizzy afterwards,” the 25-year-old said, standing in front of a window, the sweeping Ukrainian landscape rolling by.
The journeys to and from the front, where Ukraine is coming under increasing pressure, have given Viktorya a painful insight into the cost of the conflict grinding through its third year.
“I understand the number of wounded now. It’s very hard to see it every day,” she said.
Kyiv — like Moscow — is tight-lipped about its soldier casualty count.
President Volodymyr Zelensky in February said the number of Ukrainian servicemen confirmed killed was around 31,000 — a figure observers say is likely an underestimate — but the number of missing and wounded has never been disclosed.
Severe injuries
Most of those wounded were struck in artillery or drone attacks, staff explained, and many have had arms or legs amputated or were unconscious.
One carriage is designated for patients who have been in intensive care and doctors can even operate on patients in case of “force majeure,” doctor Oleksandr said.
Things can go wrong and mass bleeding — an unpredictable and rapid killer — is a major concern for staff.
“Staff are always near the patient,” Oleksandr explained, adding that they take turns using the toilet or eating.
Despite the logistical issues around caregiving on moving trains, the wounded soldiers’ preoccupations lie elsewhere.
“Their psychological state is not good,” Olena, a medical staff worker, told AFP.
“They’re not worried about losing a limb or whatever else. What depresses them is how their comrades are and how their family is,” Olena added.
Tales of war
One Ukrainian serviceman on the train was being treated for a gunshot wound after being caught in a Russian ambush that also killed one of his fellow soldiers.
“Four of us left but not all of us returned,” the 28-year-old who identified himself as Murchyk said.
But he was already gauging when he might be able to make his way back to the front, where Ukraine’s outnumbered forces have been ceding ground to determined Russian advances.
Whether Murchyk can return to combat will be decided by a medical commission, but he said he was clear-eyed about his wish.
“I’d like to go back,” he told AFP.
The train evacuations in Ukraine began when the war did, in February 2022.
It revives a process used in World War II, with several refitted trains now taking wounded troops from the front.
When Oleksandr’s train arrives at its destination, ambulances are already waiting for the patients to be loaded off and taken onwards to hospital.
“It is of course very stressful and yes, you breathe a sigh of relief when you arrive and unload,” he said, “when you see that all the ambulances have left, when the platform is empty and the train is empty.”


Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa

Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa
Updated 28 October 2024
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Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa

Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa
  • Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions
  • Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria’s Kogi state, where Africa’s third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue

LOKOJA: Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu’s house in central Nigeria.
It is always the same story — the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters claim his home for weeks on end, until he can return and take stock of the damage.
The house then needs cleaning, repairs, fumigation and repainting, until the next rainy season.
Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria’s Kogi state, where Africa’s third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue.
But across vast areas of Africa, climate change has thrown weather patterns into disarray and made flooding much more severe, especially this year.
Devastating inundations are threatening the survival of millions of residents on the continent. Homes have been wrecked and crops ruined, jeopardizing regional food security.
Torrential rains and severe flooding have affected around 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa so far in 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).


Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first became more severe in Kogi state in 2012 and have battered the area each year since.
In 2022, Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.
Sandra Musa, an emergency agency adviser to the Kogi state governor, believes this year’s flooding has not yet reached the level seen in 2022, but warned it was “very, very bad.”
“Usually at this time of year the water level drops, but here it’s rising again,” she told AFP, estimating that the floods have affected around two million people in the state.
Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shopkeeper, can only get to her house in the Adankolo district of Lokoja by boat as a result of the waters.
The swollen river rises almost to the windows, while water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.
“I lost everything. My bed, my cushioned chair, my wardrobe, my kitchen equipment,” she told AFP.
With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has little choice but to keep living in the small concrete building and repair it, flood after flood.


Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization.
This year is set to overtake 2023 as the world’s hottest on record.
“This year has been unusual in terms of the amount of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the signs of climate change,” said Aida Diongue-Niang from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall was “unprecedented,” according to Amadou Diakite from the Mali Meteo weather service.
In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rain than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters put at risk the historic city center of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the desert north.
Over the border in Chad, torrential rains since July have killed at least 576 people and affected 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the population, according to a report published by the OCHA.
In neighboring Cameroon, the UN body said torrential rains had destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops.
Floodwaters swept through the capital Conakry in Guinea, while floods in Monrovia reignited debates over building another city to serve as Libera’s capital.
Entire districts of Mali’s capital Bamako were submerged, leaving waste and liquid from septic tanks seeping across the streets.
In August, downpours caused the roof of the centuries-old Tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao to collapse.
Several countries have postponed the start of the school year as a result of the floods.


“It used to be a decadal cycle of flooding, and we’re now into a yearly cycle,” said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.
“This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels,” she said.
As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity, scientists warn.
Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and intense heat.
Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, Youssouf Sane of Senegal’s meteorology agency said, urging governments to think about the relationship between climate change and urbanization.
But the IPCC’s Diongue-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather was to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
“That doesn’t fall to the region — it falls to the whole of humanity,” she said.


Japan PM vows to stay on despite election debacle

Japan PM vows to stay on despite election debacle
Updated 28 October 2024
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Japan PM vows to stay on despite election debacle

Japan PM vows to stay on despite election debacle

TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed Monday to stay in office despite his gamble of snap elections backfiring, with the ruling party’s worst result in 15 years.
Ishiba, 67, called Sunday’s election days after taking office on October 1, but voters angry at a slush fund scandal punished his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost non-stop since 1955.
With projections suggesting the LDP-led coalition would lose its ruling majority, Ishiba vowed to stay in office, saying he would not allow a “political vacuum.”
“I want to fulfill my duty by protecting people’s lives, protecting Japan,” Ishiba told reporters.
He said the biggest election factor was “people’s suspicion, mistrust and anger” over a scandal, which saw LDP figures pocket money from fund-raising events and which helped sink his predecessor Fumio Kishida.
“I will enact fundamental reform regarding the issue of money and politics,” Ishiba told reporters, repeating that voters had delivered a “severe judgment” on the party.
The yen hit a three-month low, sliding more than one percent against the dollar, as exit polls and results reported by national broadcaster NHK and other media showed the worst result for the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito in 15 years.
They were projected to fall short of Ishiba’s stated goal of winning at least 233 seats — a majority in the 456-member lower house.
The LDP won 191 seats, down from 259 at the last election in 2021, and Komeito 24, according to NHK tallies. Official results were expected later Monday.
Ahead of the election, Japanese media had speculated that if this happened, Ishiba could potentially quit, becoming the nation’s shortest-serving prime minister in the post-war period.
On Monday the LDP’s election committee chief, former premier Junichiro Koizumi’s son Shinjiro Koizumi, resigned.
The most likely next step is that Ishiba will now seek to head a minority government, with the divided opposition seen as probably incapable of forming a coalition of their own, analysts said.
Ishiba said Monday he was not considering a broader coalition “at this point.”
“Lawmakers aligned with (former prime minister Shinzo) Abe were cold-shouldered under Ishiba, so they could potentially pounce on the opportunity to take their revenge,” Yu Uchiyama, political science professor at the University of Tokyo, told AFP.
“But at the same time, with the number of LDP seats reduced so much, they might take the high road and support Ishiba for now, thinking it’s not the time for infighting,” he said.
A big winner was former premier Yoshihiko Noda’s opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) which increased its projected seat tally to 148 from 96 at the last election.
Ishiba had promised to not actively support LDP politicians caught up in the funding scandal.
But the opposition jumped on media reports that the party has provided 20 million yen ($132,000) each to district offices headed by these figures, who were still standing in the election.
“Voters chose which party would be the best fit to push for political reforms,” Noda said late Sunday, adding that the “LDP-Komeito administration cannot continue.”
Mirroring elections elsewhere, fringe parties did well, with Reiwa Shinsengumi, founded by a former actor, tripling its seats to nine after promising to abolish sales tax and boost pensions.
The anti-immigration and traditionalist Conservative Party of Japan, established in 2023 by nationalist writer Naoki Hyakuta, won its first three seats.
The number of women lawmakers meanwhile reached a record high at 73, according to NHK, but still representing less than 16 percent of the legislature.
“As long as our own lives don’t improve, I think everyone has given up on the idea that we can expect anything from politicians,” restaurant worker Masakazu Ikeuchi, 44, told AFP on Monday in rainy Tokyo.
“I think the outcome was a result of people across Japan wanting to change the current situation,” said fellow voter Takako Sasaki, 44.


France’s president is visiting Morocco after his Western Sahara change brings a ‘new honeymoon’

France’s president is visiting Morocco after his Western Sahara change brings a ‘new honeymoon’
Updated 28 October 2024
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France’s president is visiting Morocco after his Western Sahara change brings a ‘new honeymoon’

France’s president is visiting Morocco after his Western Sahara change brings a ‘new honeymoon’
  • Macron is scheduled to meet with King Mohammed VI and Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and address Morocco’s Parliament
  • Morocco is the top destination for French investment in Africa and France is Morocco’s top trade partner

RABAT: French President Emmanuel Macron arrives Monday in Morocco, where he is expected to meet with the North African kingdom’s leaders and discuss partnerships regarding trade, climate change and immigration.
During the president’s three-day visit to Rabat, he is scheduled to meet with King Mohammed VI and Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and address Morocco’s Parliament.
It comes months after Macron changed France’s longstanding public position and backed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara. The move endeared the country to Morocco and alienated it from Algeria, which hosts refugee camps governed by the pro-independence Polisario Front and has long pushed for a UN-organized referendum to solve the conflict.
In the days leading up to the visit, Moroccan publications lauded the “warm reunion” and a “new honeymoon” between the two countries while French flags were hung throughout Rabat.
France and Morocco have historically partnered on issues ranging from counterterrorism to Western Sahara. Morocco is the top destination for French investment in Africa and France is Morocco’s top trade partner. Morocco imports French cereals, renewable energy infrastructure like turbines and weapons. Morocco exports goods to France including tomatoes, cars and airplane parts.
Moroccans are among the largest foreign-born communities in France, where North African immigrants are a key political constituency and a focal point of debates about the roles of Islam and immigration in French society. In recent months, France’s new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has pushed for the country to take a hard-line approach toward immigration and seek deals with countries like Morocco to better prevent would-be migrants from crossing into Europe.
On Macron’s last visit to Morocco, he and King Mohammed VI inaugurated Al Boraq, Africa’s first high-speed rail line, made possible by French financing and trains manufactured by the French firm Alstrom.
Despite close ties, relations have at times been fragile between France and Morocco, which was a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956. In 2021, Morocco suspended consular relations France momentarily reduced the number of visas offered to Moroccans in protest of its refusal to provide documents needed to deport people who migrated to France without authorization.
Relations between the two countries soured further that year when a 2021 report revealed Morocco’s security services had used Israeli spyware to infiltrate the devices of activists and politicians, including Macron. Morocco denied and sued over the allegations.