A typhoon has swept through southern Japan, forcing evacuations and cutting power to a third of homes on the Okinawa islands.
Slow-moving Khanun – the third typhoon to hit East Asia in as many weeks – threatens to worsen Beijing’s heaviest rains in more than a century.
At least 34 people have died due to floods in China so far.
Experts say that such extreme weather events will become more frequent due to global warming.
Khanun comes on the heels of two other typhoons, Tulum and Doksuri, a super typhoon that also battered the Philippines and Taiwan, killing more than 30 people in the past few weeks. It was expected to make landfall on China’s northeast coast on Wednesday but is now more likely to cross the Japanese mainland without hitting China, according to forecasts.
Japan’s tropical Okinawa islands are expected to face winds of 252 km/h (156 mph) on Wednesday. About 20,000 people have been advised to evacuate and about 900 flights have been canceled at Okinawa’s Naha Airport. This is the best tourist season for the island. Such strong storms are rare in Japan at this time of year.
But climate scientists have long warned that global warming will increase the intensity and frequency of storms and heat waves, both of which hit parts of Asia last month.
Winston Chow, professor of urban climate at Singapore Management University, likens extreme weather to a game of roulette, where people place bets on red and black squares. Climate change, they say, has increased the likelihood of an extreme weather event — that is, of the ball landing on the red square.
“The more emissions we put out, the more black squares will turn red, so the odds are we’ll land on the red more often every year,” he said.
The combined effect of the three typhoons has drenched the Chinese capital Beijing and northern regions such as Tianjin and Hebei province since late last week. In hard-hit villages in Beijing’s Mantogu district, images published on state media showed residents shoveling mud from their homes as authorities uprooted roads and stone bridges and uprooted trees.
Beijing alone has experienced “the heaviest rainfall in 140 years” in the past few days, officials said, warning of more “significant downpours”.
