Typhoon Etau has dumped more than 2 feet of rain in areas of Eastern Japan since Monday causing unprecedented flooding. Raging waters have torn houses from their foundations, uprooted trees and forced more than 170,000 people from their homes. Those who didn’t leave found their houses submerged within minutes.
Helicopters hovering over swirling, muddy waters rescued 101 people from the roofs of their homes as of Thursday. Seven people are missing and at least 17 were injured, one seriously.
“Tochigi Prefecture is facing a grave danger and is in an emergency situation,” Japan Meteorological Agency Spokesman Takuya Deshimaru said. “It is experiencing unprecedented downpour.”
The disaster is far from over. Parts of eastern Japan will get another 2-4 inches of rain over the next 36 hours, according to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
The mountains will help induce more rain and will funnel the precipitation, intensifying flooding and causing an even greater risk of mudslides.
Typhoon Goni has slammed into Japan with wind gusts topping 112 m.p.h. and has left as many as 26 people dead and over 100 injured.
Officials in Japan urged more than 600,000 people to flee their homes and to seek shelter.
The storm made landfall around 6 a.m. in Kumamoto prefecture. The storm then crossed over one of the country’s four main islands before heading into the sea of Japan and striking North and South Korea.
The storm essentially paralyzed the country, with air and rail service suspended during the course of the storm. Over 470,000 homes were without power at one point during the storm’s crossing of the nation.
Officials say at least one man is confirmed missing and presumed dead in a landslide caused by the torrential rain. The city of Hiroshima ordered the evacuation of 70,000 because of potential landslides.
The storm had previously left 26 dead in the Philippines with 15 still reported as missing. Thousands of homes were destroyed and hundreds of thousands have been left with no shelter because of storm damage.
The typhoon is beginning to break up as the eye has collapsed but heavy rain is still pouring into North and South Korea. North Korean officials say that at least 40 people have died because of storm related flooding and over 1,000 homes have been damaged.
The stock markets fell more than one percent under pressures from low oil prices and the uncertainly from the Federal Reserve over the raising of interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was over 300 points lower Thursday after a 163 point drop on Wednesday. The pace means the DJIA will have its worst day since losing 350 points on June 29th.
Markets around the world were impacted as well.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 0.9%, the Hang Seng index in Hong Hong off 1.8%, the Shanghai composite in mainland China down 3.4%, Germany’s DAX off 2.3% and the CAC 40 in Paris off 2.1%.
“I think the oil and the geopolitical problems are the real problems for the market because we’re looking at lower global economic growth, and lower global growth is going to weigh on the U.S. as well,” Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital, told CNBC.
Some analysts, however, say that the movement by China last week to devalue the Yuan over two consecutive days is also impacting the market.
“There is heightened uncertainty that began with yuan devaluation last week, while overall China’s growth is slowing faster than thought. This is weighing on confidence,” Randy Frederick, managing director of trading & derivatives at Schwab Center for Financial Research, told CNBC.
(Update 8/20/1015 at 4:48PM CT: Since this story was originally reported the dow has dropped 2% and is currently at 358.04.)
Japanese seismologists are warning citizens to prepare for “Big One” after a 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the country’s coast Saturday night.
The quake, more than 540 miles from the nation’s capital, was strong enough to make buildings in the capital shake for more than a minute. No serious damage was reported and no tsunami was issued for the country.
However, a dozen people were injured, mostly from falls.
“This was a very big quake… the shaking was felt over a broad area… fortunately, because it was deep, there is little danger of a tsunami,” Naoki Hirata, of the University of Tokyo’s earthquake research center, told the BBC.
The Saturday quake was followed Sunday morning by a 6.2 magnitude quake.
Experts are saying that the recent seismic activity around the country, which includes the eruption of Mt. Shindake, could mean that active crustal changes are taking place.
“I can say Japan is in an active stage now,” said Toshiyasu Nagao, head of Earthquake Prediction Research Centre at Tokai University.
“Considering the geographic location of Japan, we can say the current activities are rather normal and it was too quiet [before the 2011 earthquake],” Nagao told AFP. “We should be vigilant by knowing that an earthquake sizeable enough to affect our society can occur any time in the future.”
A major earthquake struck off the coast of Japan early Tuesday causing a small tsunami.
The 6.9 magnitude quake struck around 6 a.m. local time, 6.2 miles deep and 52 miles east-northeast of Miyako, Japan.
The quake did not initially cause a tsunami warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and an advisory from the Japan Meteorological Agency was quickly cancelled. However, residents of Iwate Prefecture reported a tsunami of about three feet in height.
No significant damage was reported as a result of the small tsunami.
Iwate Prefecture is a rural area with a total population around 1.3 million. A nuclear power plant in the region reportedly had no damage. Local train lines have suspended operations until the tracks can be examined for damage.
The location of the quake was on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rattled Japan late Saturday night leaving crumpled homes and dozens injured.
Aftershocks continued to shake the area and villagers fled their homes to shelters after at least 50 homes collapsed after the initial quake. Officials say that because the homes are built to withstand feet of heavy snow in the winter, it kept more homes from collapsing.
However, the homes that fell resulted in broken bones after heavy furniture fell on residents as they slept on their tatami floors.
The quake, which struck just west of Nagano at a depth of 3 miles, struck along a very active fault according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Officials say most of the residents of the area are elderly and that younger residents are working to care for those who were injured and who lost their homes.
Witnesses across the eastern part of the U.S. and in western Japan both reported seeing fireballs in the sky on Monday night.
NASA says reports of the meteor have been registered from South Carolina to Chicago.
Most of the reports describe the meteor as “greenish to white” colored as it crossed the sky. The reports covered over an hour between the initial reports on the east coast and the times the fireball was spotted in the Chicago area sky.
The American Meteor Society said they are investigating over 200 reports connected to the meteor and that no one has reported any impact from the sight.
Meanwhile, in western Japan, witnesses say a “fireball” roared across the sky Monday night. Various security cameras were able to capture what appears to be a strong green light or a faint orange light tracking across the sky.
Scientists say any fragments from that meteor would have ended up in the sea.
A major earthquake shook northern Japan on Saturday.
The magnitude 6.3 quake struck around 12:35 p.m. local time under the ocean about 400 miles north northeast of Tokyo. The quake was 8.4 miles underground and did not produce a tsunami.
Because of the location of the quake, only a small amount of damage and minor injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, Japan’s nuclear regulatory commission said that the tsunami in 2011 was the cause of the damage and meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The massive earthquake did not cause enough damage to launch the plant into a meltdown.
The plant also announced last week they had made improvements that would now require an 89 foot wave to cause damage.
Typhoon Vongfong has roared into Japan leaving a trail of flooding, damage and death.
The storm struck the Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu prefects on Monday. At least one person is missing and presumed dead and 61 people were injured in the initial waves of the storm.
The storm struck on the last day of a three-day holiday weekend. The city of Shizuoka ordered 212,000 households making up over 506,000 people to leave ahead of the storm.
Railway service across the nation was suspended in preparation for the storm.
The storm is weakening rapidly as it moves across the nation; it had been downgraded to Tropical Storm status around noon eastern time.
The year’s most powerful storm is focusing on Okinawa.
Japan, which has been recovering from a strike from Typhoon Phanfone last week that dumped heavy rain and battered the country with high winds, is directly in the path of Typhoon Vongfong.
Vongfong is classified as a “Super Typhoon” and is over open water. The Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center says the storm has sustained winds of 179 miles per hour and gusts over 219 miles per hour. Forecasts say the sustained winds will strengthen to 190 miles per hour at the storm’s peak.
Vongfong is the sixth “Super Typhoon” in the Pacific this year. While the storm season has seen half the usual amount of storms, the number of Super Typhoons is double the season average.
Japanese officials are concerned about the storm striking so soon after Phanfone, which disrupted air and sea travel, led to the disappearance of two American soldiers and forced suspension of searches for bodies on Mount Ontake.