Photo/Illutration High waves lash the coast of Amami-Oshima island on Sept. 5 as Typhoon No. 10 approaches. (Kazuaki Kanda)

Authorities urged residents of the Kyushu region in southern Japan to be on the highest level of alert as monster Typhoon No. 10 looked set to make a direct hit.

The typhoon was expected to approach Okinawa Prefecture with a ferocity that could lead to a special alert being issued on the morning of Sept. 6. It was expected to approach Kyushu, the southernmost main island, between the afternoon of Sept. 6 and the following day. Depending on its course, the typhoon may well make landfall and wreak havoc.

By Sept. 6, winds of up to 198 kph were expected to rage in Okinawa and the Amami islands of Kagoshima Prefecture, lessening to 162 kph in southern Kyushu and 90 kph in northern Kyushu.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast record rainfall, with Okinawa expected to receive 300 millimeters in the 24-hour period until 6 a.m. on Sept. 6. Forecasts for the 24-hour period until 6 a.m. on Sept 7 ranged between 300 and 500 mm in southern Kyushu and the Amami islands and between 300 and 400 mm for northern Kyushu.

Other parts of Japan will also likely be hit by heavy rainfall as the typhoon was expected to carry warm humid air from the south and dump it on wide parts of western and eastern Japan.

The forecast was for between 200 and 300 mm in the Shikoku, Kinki and Tokai regions in the 24-hour period until 6 a.m. on Sept. 7.

Residents of Kyushu were doing everything they could to prepare for the typhoon.

Kagoshima prefectural authorities used Self-Defense Forces helicopters on the evening of Sept. 4 to evacuate 200 or so of the roughly 670 residents of outlying Toshima island to Kagoshima city. 

After landing in Kagoshima city, buses took the evacuees to a hotel reserved by the Toshima village government.

“This is the first time I have experienced something like this,” said a woman in her 80s. “I am worried that I will find my home gone when I return to the island.”

High waves were pounding the coast of Amami-Oshima island early Sept. 5. Workers were boarding up the windows of a hotel near Nase Port in Amami city.

At the Fukuoka bus terminal, a 49-year-old woman carried cardboard, blue vinyl sheets and tape as she boarded for a trip to her family home in Nagasaki where her mother lives alone. She planned to seal the windows of the home with the vinyl sheet and bring her mother back with her to her home in Fukuoka.

West Japan Railway Co. on Sept. 5 announced that Shinkansen bullet train service between Hiroshima and Hakata in Fukuoka would be cancelled for all of Sept. 7.

Airlines were also cancelling flights scheduled for Sept. 6 to and from Kyushu and Okinawa.

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