Japan braces for double storms, torrential rains shut down parts of Taiwan

By Chang-Ran Kim and Ann Wang

TOKYO/ZHUBEI, Taiwan, June 26 (Reuters) – Japan grappled with transport disruptions on Friday while bracing for more torrential rain and risks from two approaching tropical storms that spurred authorities to issue high-level landslide warnings and order the evacuation of 1 million people.

More than 200 flights were cancelled and dozens of train services suspended while many expressways were closed, the land ministry said, while carmaker Toyota briefly halted operations at a factory in the southern region of Kyushu.

Weather officials said a lingering seasonal rain front combined with warm, moist air from tropical storms Mekkhala and Higos brought downpours to wide swathes of Japan’s west, threatening landslides, floods and swollen rivers. 

About 1 million people faced evacuation orders after some were lifted in Okinawa and other southern areas, emergency management authorities said.

Mekkhala, downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm, was passing over the southern Ryukyu Islands on Friday after skirting Taiwan, where severe rains shut down parts of the island to keep about 6 million people from work or school.

“Last night the rain wasn’t too bad. But this morning the rain didn’t stop,” said Chi, a dessert shop owner in northern Taiwan’s Zhubei city. “The road outside was flooded up to the knees, and inside our shop it was a little below knee level.”

By Saturday, Mekkhala was expected to accelerate and approach western and eastern Japan, around the same time that Higos was forecast to draw close to the country’s east, and possibly make landfall, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The combined impact of the storms and the rain front could boost rainfall across much of the country, it added.

Toyota said work would resume from Friday’s second shift at its Kyushu factory, shut from Thursday afternoon.

BARRIER LAKE RISK

Taiwan ordered offices and schools closed on Friday in its three hardest-hit southern regions of Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Tainan, where severe flooding shut down a section of the island’s main north-south railway link.

In the northern city of Hsinchu home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, offices and schools closed from noon.

In a statement, TSMC said its factories were operating normally, and it had taken measures across its Taiwan facilities to prepare for the rain.

About 6 million people live in the four affected areas of Taiwan. In parts of largely rural Pingtung, almost a metre (3.3 ft) of rain has fallen since Thursday.

No casualties were reported in Taiwan but authorities in Hualien county were evacuating nearly 200 residents from two townships downstream of a rapidly filling barrier lake in the mountains.

Barrier lakes result when rocks, landslides or other natural blockages form a dam across a river, normally in a valley, holding back flows or even natural drainage.

Last year, 19 people died elsewhere in Hualien when another barrier lake breached its banks during Super Typhoon Ragasa, unleashing a wall of water and mud into homes.

Rain is not all bad news for southern Taiwan, which relies on the traditional summer and autumn typhoon season to fill its reservoirs after winters that are typically dry.

(Reporting by Ann Wang in Zhubei, Taiwan, Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee in Taipei, Chang-Ran Kim and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Kate Mayberry and Clarence Fernandez)