Japan and Indonesia out of breath

The heart of Japan was swept away yesterday Sunday by Typhoon Trami, which injured dozens of people, particularly on the islands in the south of the archipelago and threatened to cause flooding and landslides.

The tropical hurricane has already caused major transportation disruptions in western Japan, with more than a thousand flights cancelled due to the closure of Kansai Airport near Osaka.

It is precisely near this conurbation, the third largest in the country, that the centre of the typhoon was supposed to hit the heart of the Japanese archipelago shortly after 18H00 (09H00 GMT) before moving up the entire territory on a northeast trajectory. It is accompanied by gusts at 216 km/h.

The authorities reported 46 minor injuries on Okinawa Island (southwest), first hit by Trami on Saturday, and 10 others in Kagoshima, southern Kyushu Island (southwest).

The government has advised 1.5 million people to evacuate, according to the public channel NHK. Half a million homes in Okinawa and Kyushu were without electricity.

As the typhoon progressed eastward, railway authorities made the rare decision to cancel evening train services in Tokyo, which has one of the busiest networks in the world, by urging users to stay in sheltered areas.

Important earthquake in Indonesia

Indonesia is located on the Pacific fire belt which regularly causes high seismic activity. The last one was devastating on the island of Lombok, near Bali.

A strong earthquake on Celebes

The 10 km deep earthquake of Friday, September 28, struck the centre of the island a few hours after a first tremor. The toll of the earthquake followed by a tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Celebes rose to 420 deaths on Sunday,

The tremor was centred 78 kilometres north of the city of Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, but it was felt some 900 kilometres south of the island’s largest city, Makassar. The American institute, US Geological Survey, reported that the earthquake was 7.5 magnitude.

Tsunami warning

The national country relief agency briefly issued a tsunami warning before cancelling it. The earthquake that has just struck one of the islands of Celebes is of a magnitude larger than the violent earthquakes that killed more than 500 people and injured thousands on the island of Lombok a few weeks ago.

Serge Fabre