The total death toll reflected across multiple Japanese news agencies is more than double the amount that the government officials has announced.As many as 33 people have died in the chaos that Hagibis brought and 19 remain missing as Japanese news sources have reported, according to The Associated Press. However, the Japanese government's Fire and Disaster Management Agency announced Sunday night that 14 people were dead, 11 missing and 187 were injured. The AP notes that the agency tends to be conservative in its counts.A 50-year-old man died when his car overturned in high winds in Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo on Saturday, according to Reuters. Four others were injured in the prefecture when high winds ripped roofs off homes. Raging floodwaters and mudslides were among some of the causes of deaths.
Surging waves hit against the breakwater and a lighthouse as Typhoon Hagibis approaches at a port in town of Kiho, Mie prefecture, central
Japan Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Tokyo and surrounding areas braced for a powerful typhoon forecast as the worst in six decades, with streets and trains stations unusually quiet Saturday as rain poured over the city. (AP Photo/Toru Hanai) During one rescue operation in the city of Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture, a woman in her 70s was accidentally dropped 131 feet in an effort to transport her into a rescue helicopter, the AP reported. In a news conference, department officials publicly apologized and acknowledged she had not been strapped in properly, the AP said.The NHK reported that as of 5 p.m. Sunday, 72,400 households in the Chiba Prefecture and 16,3000 households in the Kanagawa Prefecture were without power.More than 6 million people had been advised to evacuate ahead of Typhoon Hagibis, according to the Kyodo News.
Typhoon Hagibis made landfall over Japan just before 7 p.m. local time on Saturday, moving ashore near Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture packing winds of the equivalent strength as a Category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Ocean basins. (Image/NASA EOSDIS Worldview) As AccuWeather predicted, one of the biggest issues with Hagibis was flooding rainfall.At least ten levees have collapsed on nine rivers due to the heavy rain, according to NHK. The floodwaters inundated several neighboring cities and towns, forcing people from their homes.Around 8 a.m. on Sunday, emergency officials reported that a nursing home in the Saitama Prefecture had been flooded, NHK said. There are no reports of deaths, but about 220 elderly people and staff had evacuated to the second floor of the building. Water rescues have since been underway to rescue the people trapped.> 特別養護老人ホームで260人が孤立 埼玉 川越https://t.co/GN9QVfUAsHnhk_news nhk_video pic.twitter.com/9jYB0qdYIs> > -- NHKニュース (@nhk_news) October 13, 2019The NHK reported that a record level of nearly 1,000 millimeters of rain, or close to 39 inches, from the storm had fallen over Hakone Town in the Kanagawa Prefecture over a time span of 48 hours.The Japan Meteorology Agency issued level 5 heavy rain emergencies - the highest level of warning in the JMA's five-level warning system - across at least seven prefectures by early Sunday morning."Reports of rainfall totals between 6 to 12 inches, or 152 to 304 millimeters, were common across Kansai, Chubu and Kanto, but locally higher amounts have been reported in higher elevations of the mountains," AccuWeather Meteorologist Maura Kelly said. "Chichibu reported 20.11 inches, or 511 millimeters, of rainfall through Saturday night."Observations from Tokyo on Saturday recorded 209 mm (8.23 inches) of rainfall and a max wind gusts of 150 km/h (93 mph).Early Sunday morning, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government decided to apply the Disaster Relief Law to the 25 wards and municipalities of Tokyo due to the damage caused by Hagibis, the news source said.This means that government and city aid will pay for the installation of evacuation shelters and emergency repairs for damaged homes.
Surging waves hit against the breakwater and a lighthouse as Typhoon Hagibis approaches at a port in town of Kiho, Mie prefecture, central Japan Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Tokyo and surrounding areas braced for a powerful typhoon forecast as the worst in six decades, with streets and train stations unusually quiet Saturday as rain poured over the city. (AP Photo/Toru Hanai) While it had still been churning in the West Pacific, Hagibis had rapidly strengthened to become the third super typhoon of the season. The storm went from a tropical depression with sustained winds of 48 km/h (30 mph) to a super typhoon producing winds of 241 km/h (150 mph) only 48 hours later.At a peak strength of 257 km/h (160 mph), the typhoon tied with Wutip from February as the most powerful tropical cyclone in the West Pacific Basin this year.Although the Japan Meteorological Agency had downgraded the status of the storm to a "strong" typhoon before landfall in Japan, the agency had warned in a news conference during that Friday morning the storm could be as severe as the Kanogawa Typhoon, which had killed more than 1,200 people in 1958 and is one of the deadliest typhoons on record, the
New York Times reported.Hagibis had made landfall in Japan just before 7 p.m. local time on Saturday, Oct. 12, moving ashore near Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture and packing winds of the equivalent strength as a Category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Ocean basins.The storm gradually weakened as it tracked across the east coast of Japan. By 5 a.m. local time on Sunday, the JMA had downgraded the scale of Hagibis from a "large and strong" typhoon to a "large" typhoon with maximum sustained winds of about 70 mph and gusts of about 98 mph.As the storm moved away from Tokyo around 6 a.m. Sunday morning, transportation operations such as the Haneda Airport were beginning to resume once again. By 2 p.m. Sunday, the storm had moved off of the eastern coast of Japan and had been downgraded to a low pressure system."Another cold front is expected to move over Japan and bring occasional showers to the area during the beginning of this week," Kelly said. "By the middle of the week, dry conditions look to return to areas recovering from Hagibis. Dry weather may last through the end of the week before the next chance of rain arrives in southern Japan."