Southern Japan maintains rain alert over typhoon Khanun
Tokyo, Aug 8 (EFE).- Japan’s meteorological authorities maintained Tuesday the alert for torrential rains in the south and southwest of the archipelago due to the advance of Cyclone Khanun, heading very slowly towards the Japanese island of Kyushu.
Khanun, the sixth typhoon of the season in the Pacific, already downgraded into a severe tropical storm, was at 10:45 local time (1:45 GMT) on Tuesday in the waters of the Philippine Sea some 100 kilometers from the islands from Amami-Oshima, Toshima and Yakushima.
The windstorm is heading toward the western part of the island of Kyushu, one of the main islands in southern Japan, where it is expected to reach Wednesday, according to the latest forecast from the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The agency said it could bring record-high rainfall in the area and that it far exceeds normal rainfall during this time, with the associated risks such as the danger of overflows, landslides or waves, for which it has urged the population to prepare for contingencies.
The authorities said about 400 millimeters of rain could fall in Kyushu in the 24 hours before Wednesday morning and about 300 millimeters in the Amami region, and that some of the clouds carried by the storm could also affect parts of the country’s west.
Khanun has been wreaking havoc on the Okinawa archipelago, southwest of Kyushu, since late last week.
The tropical cyclone has lost strength over time, but it still carries gusts of winds of more than 140 kmph and the alert is maintained due to its prolonged influence in the region.
Rainfall is expected to last through Friday over parts of southern and western Japan, before Khanun heads to the Korean peninsula, where it could make landfall later in the week, based on its current estimated track.
In addition to Khanun, another potential typhoon would be forming to the south of the Japanese archipelago, tropical storm Lan, which on Tuesday was in North Pacific waters more than 700 kilometers southeast of the Ogawasawa Islands, an archipelago about 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo. EFE
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