Japan has issued evacuation advisories for more than a million people as it faces extremely strong winds and heavy rain consequence of typhoon Jebi’s landfall.
Jebi – whose name means “swallow” in Korean – was briefly considered a super typhoon and is the latest harsh weather to hit Japan this summer following rains, landslides, floods and record-breaking heat that killed hundreds of people.
The storm made landfall on Shikoku, the smallest main island. It raked across the western part of the largest main island, Honshu, near the city of Kobe, several hours later, heading rapidly north.
Tides in some areas were the highest since a typhoon in 1961, with flooding covering the runways at Kansai International Airport in Osaka. It is considered a category-3 typhoon, out of five, on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Wind gusts of up to 208 km/h were recorded in one part of Shikoku, with forecasts as high as 216 km/h.