Typhoon No. 10, which swept Kyushu with violent wind and rain, has caused injuries, landslides and various types of damage to buildings across a widespread area.
On Monday morning, residents of Shiiba, Miyazaki Prefecture, were found to have been affected by a landslide. Windows at an evacuation center were broken due to the violent storm, injuring some. Residents were seen busy cleaning up their homes.
During the 24 hours through late Sunday night, rainfall had reached 438 millimeters in the village of Shiiba. Four people had been unreachable due to a landslide as of early Monday afternoon.
According to the village and other sources, the landslide is believed to have occurred Sunday night and the damage was confirmed by village officials Monday morning. Soil flowed into residential houses, an office of a construction company and other places, burying five people: the company owner, his wife, his son and two employees.
The company owner managed to escape on his own. The village and others did not begin searching for the remaining four until shortly before noon Monday because secondary damage was feared. There was a large amount of soil near the landslide site and water was leaking from the diagonal surface of the pile of the soil.
Buildings were damaged in many areas. In Makurazaki, Kagoshima Prefecture, an uninhabited house along the coast collapsed. An office of a taxi company in Kagoshima City had a wall broken, exposing the interior.
"I had reinforced the glass with tape, though," said a male employee, 51. "I've never seen such tremendous damage."
In Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City, the walls of a house fell.
Residents spent Sunday night at evacuation centers in various parts of Kyushu, paying attention to measures to prevent infection with the novel coronavirus.
About 30 people from Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, which was devastated by the torrential rain in July, moved by bus Sunday to Kumamoto City, about 90 kilometers away, and stayed at the Kumamoto Prefectural Theater.
"We evacuated because we were worried about strong wind and that the Kuma River might be flooded," said a hospital clerk who evacuated with her 15-year-old second son. "I live in an apartment with many windows and I'm worried they may get broken."
At an evacuation center in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, where the city was flooded by torrential rain in July, residents spent Sunday night about 1 meter apart from each other to prevent infection.
Some shelters suffered power outages. At the gymnasium of Soumuta Elementary School near the center of Kagoshima City, where 21 people from 12 households stayed, the lights went out Sunday night. The evacuees used a generator one of them brought to light up the passage to toilet.
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