Flights scrapped, 1.6 million residents urged to evacuate as powerful typhoon threatens Japan

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - TOKYO — Hundreds of flights were canceled and more than 1.6million people were under evacuation advisories in Japan on Monday as Typhoon Dujuan approached Tokyo, potentially bringing record rainfall.

Dujuan briefly reached typhoon status on Friday before weakening to a tropical storm again on Sunday morning. But it is expected to strengthen back to a typhoon by Tuesday morning.

Although mainland Japan has avoided a direct hit, Dujuan’s track takes it across the Izu Islands, where evacuation warnings are in place. Heavy rain, flooding and landslide alerts are widespread, with high waves adding another threat to exposed coastal areas and islands.

Japan often sees strong typhoons in the late summer and early autumn, and other storms have already disrupted some events at the Asian Games being hosted in the country.

Dujuan was bringing winds of around 144 kilometers per hour on Monday as it moved to around 130 kilometers south of Katsuura City near Tokyo.

Japan Airlines canceled 135 flights and All Nippon Airways scrapped 140, while more than 9,000 households near Tokyo were without power.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's departure for New York to attend the UN ​General Assembly was delayed ​by four hours ⁠because of the storm, with the government saying she would now leave Tokyo at 11 p.m. JST (1500 GMT).

More than 1.6 million residents in and around the capital were urged to evacuate, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. The evacuations are not mandatory.

Landslide warnings were issued for Tokyo as well as for Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures. Railway operators in Tokyo and neighboring regions suspended services on some lines.

Authorities cautioned that linear rain ​bands could form over Kanto and central Japan, sharply raising ​the risk ⁠of flash floods and other rain-related disasters.

Linear bands, which have become a growing concern in Japan in recent years, can dump extraordinary amounts of rain over a narrow area for ⁠several ​hours.

Typhoon Dujuan comes amid a year of extreme weather ​events around the world, with unusually intense rainfall, flooding and tropical cyclones affecting regions from East Asia ​to North America and Europe.

In areas where warnings have been issued, "there's a risk the rain will continue as the typhoon moves north", Takuya Hosomi of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) told reporters.

The JMA warned on Sunday that rain and winds were expected to intensify even before the typhoon's arrival.

"The total rainfall through Tuesday could exceed the average monthly rainfall for September, resulting in record-breaking heavy rain," the agency said.

One person has already been mildly injured and nine houses have been damaged due to the typhoon.

Dujuan also forced the early closure of the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world's biggest video-game trade fairs, on Monday, its final day.

A major outdoor music festival and a baseball match both scheduled to be held in Chiba were also cancelled.

Social media posts showed images of roads in front of Kamakura station, a popular sightseeing spot, were flooded.

"There is flooding in various parts of the city, so travelling by car is dangerous," Kamakura City Mayor Takashi Matsuo said on X.