Typhoon Wipha Hits Japan, Misses Fukushima

No accountability for this?

Despite Deluge No Evacuation Alert On Island

"Despite the Meteorological Agency’s alerts for an “extraordinary situation” anticipated from powerful Typhoon Wipha, no evacuation advisory was issued on Izu-Oshima, a small island south of Tokyo in the Pacific, where at least 22 people were killed and dozens remain missing.

The failure to get residents to safety has angered those who lost their homes and has left many questions to address about the steps authorities took to issue warnings.

The Meteorological Agency has established yardsticks for issuing special warnings to municipalities when “once in 50 years” heavy rain is forecast — for periods of three hours and 48 hours.

In the town of Oshima, which covers the entire island with a population of just over 8,300, the thresholds were 147 mm in three hours and 419 mm in 48.Precipitation drastically exceeded both thresholds with rainfall through Wednesday morning hitting 335 mm in three hours and 824 mm in 24 hours."

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Typhoon Wipha Hits Japan, Misses Fukushima

The strongest storm to hit Japan in a decade, Typhoon Wipha hits Japan flooding mostly in the South and Northeast sparing Fukushima in a direct hit which had originally been the concern. Breathing a huge sigh of relief here about that because had this storm directly hit Fukushima well, catastrophe. However, the storm did not leave Fukushima completely untouched (see link below.)

The question is how long before a storm the magnitude of a Wipha hits Fukushima directly? Will we see the convergence of our two worst nightmares come together? We may not have seen to this point an active hurricane season here but the cyclone/typhoon season has been crazy. Are we now passing into an age where these stronger cyclones will now overtake hurricanes? Extra- tropical cyclone Sandy brought that thought home to me in NJ almost one year ago.

Typhoon Wipha Causes More Nuclear Contamination At Fukushima

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From link:

Authorities evacuated 20,000 residents on the island of Izu Oshima, 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Tokyo, as Typhoon Wipha struck early Wednesday. Rescue workers have so far found 17 bodies, most of them buried by mudslides.

Typhoon Wipha, the strongest storm of its type in a decade, also destroyed dozens of homes and has left more than 50 people missing. Authorities have said the tolls would likely rise.

"We have no idea how bad the extent of damage could be," said Hinani Uematsu, a local official on the island.

Fukushima spared

Officials canceled up to 500 flights to and from Tokyo, most of them domestic, according to All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines. Other canceled flights including two between Tokyo and Seoul and another pair between the capital and Hong Kong, according to All Nipon Airways. Altogether, the cancellations affected plans of some 61,600 travelers, according to the airlines.

Typhoon Wipha also shut down dozens of schools in the Tokyo area, and a further three people remain missing in the area surrounding the capital. Further north, the operator of the battered Fukushima nuclear plant announced that it had released some rain water trapped inside its barrages, but added that its radiation reading remained within safety limits. The Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported no ill effects on the power station, which stores thousands of tons of radiation-polluted water used to cool reactors.

By late morning, the storm remained in the Pacific Ocean, about 160 kilometers east of Koriyama in the Fukushima prefecture, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, moving northeast and gradually shifting away from the country. The forecast in the north of the country calls for more heavy rain and wind throughout Wednesday.

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