Tokyo: Japan warned Wednesday that an “extremely strong” typhoon bearing down on the main southern island of Kyushu would bring unusually violent storms, as three people remained missing after a landslide.
Shanshan was 120 kilometers off Yakushima island, packing gusts of up to 252 kilometers per hour and inching toward Kyushu, home to 12.5 million people.
“Typhoon Shanshan is expected to approach southern Kyushu with powerful force through Thursday and it may make landfall,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
“It is expected that violent winds, high waves, and storm surge at levels that many people have never experienced before may occur,” said Hayashi, the top government spokesman.
The system has already brought heavy rains to wide areas of Japan, and late Tuesday a wall of mud, rocks and other debris swept away a house in Gamagori, a city in central Aichi prefecture, with five family members inside.
After all-night recovery efforts, a second woman in her 40s was rescued but a couple in their 70s and a man in his 30s remained unaccounted for, a Gamagori official told AFP.
Southern Kyushu is expected to see 500 millimeters of rain in the 24 hours to Thursday morning, and 600 millimeters in the 24 hours to Friday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
Local governments issued evacuation adviseries to 810,000 people in the central Shizuoka prefecture on Honshu because of the rain and to 56,000 others in Kagoshima in Kyushu, the fire and disaster management agency said.
The weather agency may also issue a special heavy rain alert for Kagoshima prefecture later Wednesday, an agency official said in a morning news conference.
“It’s necessary for us to be on the highest alert,” he said, calling for people to evacuate before any violent storm emerges.
Japan Airlines canceled 112 domestic flights and six international fights on Wednesday, while ANA Holdings canceled 112 domestic flights on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Kyushu Railway said it would suspend some Shinkansen bullet train services between Kumamoto and Kagoshima Chuo from Wednesday night and warned of further possible disruption.
Trains between Tokyo and Fukuoka, the most populous city on Kyushu, may also be canceled depending on weather conditions this week, other operators said.
Shanshan comes in the wake of Typhoon Ampil, which disrupted hundreds of flights and trains this month.
Despite dumping heavy rain, it caused only minor injuries and damage.
Ampil came days after Tropical Storm Maria brought record rains to northern areas.
Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released last month.
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Three missing as ‘extremely strong’ typhoon nears Japan
https://arab.news/y9xfe
Three missing as ‘extremely strong’ typhoon nears Japan
- Local governments issued evacuation adviseries to 810,000 people
- Japan Airlines canceled 112 domestic flights and six international fights on Wednesday
Bangladesh halts controversial relocation of Rohingya refugees to remote island
- Administration of ousted PM Sheikh Hasina spent about $350m on the project
- Rohingya refuse to move to island and 10,000 have fled, top refugee official says
DHAKA: When Bangladesh launched a multi-million-dollar project to relocate Rohingya refugees to a remote island, it promised a better life. Five years on, the controversial plan has stalled, as authorities find it is unsustainable and refugees flee back to overcrowded mainland camps.
The Bhasan Char island emerged naturally from river sediments some 20 years ago. It lies in the Bay of Bengal, over 60 km from Bangladesh’s mainland.
Never inhabited, the 40 sq. km area was developed to accommodate 100,000 Rohingya refugees from the cramped camps of the coastal Cox’s Bazar district.
Relocation to the island started in early December 2020, despite protests from the UN and humanitarian organizations, which warned that it was vulnerable to cyclones and flooding, and that its isolation restricted access to emergency services.
Over 1,600 people were then moved to Bhasan Char by the Bangladesh Navy, followed by another 1,800 the same month. During 25 such transfers, more than 38,000 refugees were resettled on the island by October 2024.
The relocation project was spearheaded by the government of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted last year. The new administration has since suspended it indefinitely.
“The Bangladesh government will not conduct any further relocation of the Rohingya to Bhasan Char island. The main reason is that the country’s present government considers the project not viable,” Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News on Sunday.
The government’s decision was prompted by data from UN agencies, which showed that operations on Bhasan Char involved 30 percent higher costs compared with the mainland camps in Cox’s Bazar, Rahman said.
“On the other hand, the Rohingya are not voluntarily coming forward for relocation to the island. Many of those previously relocated have fled ... Around 29,000 are currently living on the island, while about 10,000 have returned to Cox’s Bazar on their own.”
A mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s and have faced systemic persecution ever since.
In 2017 alone, some 750,000 of them crossed to neighboring Bangladesh, fleeing a deadly crackdown by Myanmar’s military. Today, about 1.3 million of them shelter in 33 camps in the coastal Cox’s Bazar district, making it the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Bhasan Char, where the Bangladeshi government spent an estimated $350 million to construct concrete residential buildings, cyclone shelters, roads, freshwater systems, and other infrastructure, offered better living conditions than the squalid camps.
But there was no regular transport service to the island, its inhabitants were not allowed to travel freely, and livelihood opportunities were few and dependent on aid coming from the mainland.
Rahman said: “Considering all aspects, we can say that Rohingya relocation to Bhasan Char is currently halted. Following the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime, only one batch of Rohingya was relocated to the island.
“The relocation was conducted with government funding, but the government is no longer allowing any funds for this purpose.”
“The Bangladeshi government has spent around $350 million on it from its own funds ... It seems the project has not turned out to be successful.”
