TOKYO — At least four people have died in Japan after Typhoon Dujuan battered Tokyo and surrounding prefectures with torrential rains, while tens of thousands of houses remained without power after the storm swept through the region, authorities said on Tuesday.Dujuan, which brought violent winds of 144 km/h (89mph), was moving away from Japan on Tuesday morning, allowing authorities to downgrade most heavy rain and landslide warnings.But the typhoon had already caused deaths, destruction and widespread chaos, including disruption of some events at the Asian Games and forcing the early closure in Tokyo of the one of the world’s biggest video game trade fairs.The storm caused the suspension of hundreds of flights. Most evacuation orders were lifted on Tuesday as the storm pulled away from Japan’s eastern coast.At the height of the storm on Monday, authorities warned of an “imminent threat to life” and urged 1.9 million people to move to shelters.The fatalities were from landslides in Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures. Six others were reported missing, public broadcaster NHK reported.The typhoon is the latest in a series of storms in the Pacific, made more intense by the “super El Niño”, which has warmed the ocean, fuelling the formation of storms.Authorities had advised the public to pay attention to weather information.Dujuan, which is Japan’s 25th typhoon of the year, hit in the midst of a five-day holiday and forced the cancellation of several events.Concerts scheduled for Monday at the Rock in Japan music festival were cancelled, while the Tokyo Game Show, a video game convention, also cancelled Monday’s programme.Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi offered her condolences in a post on X to those who lost their lives in the typhoon, before saying she would be continuing with her scheduled trip to the United States as planned to attend the UN General Assembly.”With a sense of urgency, I instructed Chief Cabinet Secretary Takehara and Minister Hosono to respond with utmost preparedness,” she wrote, before saying she had boarded a flight to the US.The Yokosuka City Fire Department told the BBC that a woman in Kanagawa prefecture, aged in her 60s, was believed to have been buried alive after a landslide swept the house she lived in.Following a search by rescue crews, she was found inside the home and pronounced dead, NHK reported.Separately, Sodegaura City Fire Department in Chiba prefecture told the BBC a man in his 50s was rescued after getting trapped while working to clear debris at a landslide site.The department said the worker fell into a bamboo thicket, along with some heavy machinery. He was then taken to hospital before his death was confirmed, according to local reports. Police are investigating the details of the incident.Some research suggests that Japan has become more exposed to destructive storms, but climate change is not thought to be increasing the number of these storms globally, and could even make them less common in some regions.As temperatures rise, typhoons that do form are likely to become more intense on average, however.Warmer ocean waters mean storms can pick up more energy, leading to higher wind speeds.And because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, these storms could also bring heavier rainfall.This year, El Niño, the natural weather phenomenon bringing warmer water to parts of the tropical Pacific, is another factor.El Niño doesn’t have a clear effect on the total number of typhoons, but it can affect where typhoons form, their strength and which countries they hit.Some El Niño events may expose Japan to stronger typhoons, for example.The typhoon is continuing to travel along the country’s Pacific coast, heading north. The extent of the damage today may not be known until Tuesday.
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