17 dead, 54 missing as typhoon moves northward

Yes, that was me.

Do the maths here. 6 dead. 120 million people. Thats about 1 in 20 million chance of being killed. I will take those odds. Half of the people died doing things that could be deemed dangerous, like surfing, being too close to swollen rivers in the dark, trying to repair roofs at night...

yeah. 1,000-1,500 mm of rain pouring down on mountain villages in a span of two days. not dangerous at all, apparently.

DentShop: You're simplifying things too much. 6 so far confirmed dead, and several missing. This isn't the same as a trip to the conbini, my friend, it is a massive storm. Yes, granted, every time a typhoon hits we DO hear about people who die due to the fact that they were not using common sense (on their rooftops doing something, swimming in a swollen river, etc.), but keep in mind half the dead here were killed by mud/landslides.

I was happy to get the day off yesterday, but am saddened by the loss of life and damage. Where I am it was a bit windy, but that's it. In fact, the weather was far worse BEFORE they declared a strong wind warning (when the weather actually improved). It's a slow moving storm, so people have to try and keep safe yet.

Typhoons are considered dangerous in Japan. The Isewan( 伊勢湾台風) typhoon of 1959 killed 4697 people and 401 missing.

DentShopSep. 04, 2011 - 04:00PM JST died doing things that could be deemed dangerous, like surfing, being too close to swollen rivers in the dark, trying to repair roofs at night...

or rather, by just staying in a very solid concrete building in a mountain village of Nara just try to imagine how the situation would be if 1,500 mm of rain fell in your native town in a span of two days.

This isn't the same as a trip to the conbini, my friend

More people die going to conbinis every year dude.

I agree - I am simplifying things. Because they need to be simplified. Dont live in Mudslideville, dont go swimming in torrential weather and stay of the roof.

but am saddened by the loss of life and damage

Lol - no you arent. Peace yall.

One can only wonder how this will spread the radioactive contamination from Fukushima Daiichi and what possible further damage it may cause at the site.

DentShopSep. 04, 2011 - 04:17PM JST Dont live in Mudslideville, ]

nowhere in the world would be safe when1,500 mm of rain fall in a span of 50 hours.

sswaySep. 04, 2011 - 04:23PM JST--blah blah blah 　imi fumei.

do you have any idea where fukushima is?

Dent I just hope that it wasn't someone you knew or were related to that died, is missing, or was injured due to the typhoon.

Math or your odds won't mean a whit when it happens to be one of your own.

rarara.

Agree as the typhoon is passing far away from it and already exited the country on the other side.

60% of the land mass is covered by mountains

actually, it's about 75% rather than 60%.

Hurricane Katrina of 2005 brought 200-250mm of rain to Louisiana in a 24hr period.

Wow. Every time I look at the news it gets a little bit worse. RIP people who have died.

I dont know about anyone else but I get very confused - some say "tropical storm", some say "typhoon", some say "hurricane", this was a "tropical storm" (I think?) but seemed to be as bad as a typhoon, and do typhoons have differing levels of severity compared to hurricanes? I dont hear much hear about the "category" of storm that it is. Then we have names and numbers but only somtimes hear the names. I wish they would standardise this stuff.

People who live in the kanto region also seem to have a lesser view of storms than those in the west. I guess we are not hit as much? I personally dont see it as anything worse than a typical UK November day here in Tokyo - but I bet my view would change if I lived in Shikoku!

Pretty much the same thing just an indicator of strength. Found most Typhoons get downgraded to tropical storms once they make landfall.

AFAIK, the Hurricane grading system is only used within the USA. You would have to match air-pressure, wind, speed, etc to do a comparions.

And, yes, Kanto seems to get "spared" by most of the typhoons would think it is due to the hot water current flowing into Tokyo Bay that also gives us milder winters.

this is the longest typhoon I ever had...48 hours

typhoons are deadly, that is why people prepare for it so that they will not in anyway perish. For that reason, only a few died.

I don't know but why do we have people here claiming otherwise. If hundreds of thousands of people decided to live along the river and then the river swelled because of a typhoon and caused massive lost of lives like in Katrina, why do you call it deadly? I don't understand the logic of calling it deadlier, I say it its a lack of common sense.

Thanks ITs ME.

Nicky WashidaSep. 04, 2011 - 05:06PM JST 　dont see it as anything worse than a typical UK November day here in Tokyo　」

London receives just below 650 millimetres of rainfall per annum. in many places of Wakayama, Mie, Nara, etc., 1,000-1,500 millimetres poured down in just two days

Rest in Peace to these 60 or so poor people. We didnt really get much up here in Tohoku, so I don't know how bad it must have been...

DentShop: "More people die going to conbinis every year dude."

Probably more die going to a conbini in a typhoon, because typhoons are dangerous. Next you'll be saying hurricanes, which are exactly the same thing, aren't dangerous either.

"Lol - no you arent. Peace yall."

Ummm... yes I AM saddened by the deaths, now at 15 (and yet you still contend typhoons aren't dangerous! talk about lack of common sense!). You may not be saddened by the deaths, but most human beings would be/are. Undermine it all you like, I say RIP to those dead, and I know the number will increase.

" Dont live in Mudslideville, dont go swimming in torrential weather and stay of the roof."

The latter two can easily be avoided, the foremost not so easily.

15 people have died and 43 are missing due to . mud slides and flooding, never under estimate the ferocious power of a typhoon, but for the severe storm alert it is probable that many more lives may have been lost. I hope those missing found shelter and to the relatives and friends of those who lost their lives, my sympathy and prayers

Very sad to know so many have died and or missing but even more sad by the cold hearted comments of some folk here. RIP dead victims from typhoon 12

Those city signs love to go flying through the air in a typhoon-connect with the body and it is a bad injury or worse........and JR is on average 20 mins late today

Someone explain this to me: If you know a typhoon is coming, why not put yourself out of danger by looking for shelter?

I bet 100,000 yen half the dead and missing were doing something they shouldn't have been doing during a typhoon...That reminds me of a guy in my area who decided to fix his TV antenna during a typhoon, fell off the ladder, hit his head and died. Heaven wants martyrs, not idiots.

What taifu? nothing in Kanagawa, and surf fun to surf

People at home? That's not odd. The death toll is going to be nearer 100 people, the majority of who were NOT doing anything out of the ordinary for the conditions. The 'They are idiots' brigade? Sociopath(etic) at best. These are people who have died. You're truly weird if that doesn't affect you.

Here in Kyotofu we were warned of up to 500 mm yesterday, but the mountains of northern Nara ensured that most of the rain fell down there. It was quite amazing to watch on the rain radar how the most intense rain just got stuck there and couldn't move north to clobber us. In the end we got 100mm max, and they got 1500, the poor buggers.

And for all those here blaming the victims, most of the dead have been taken by flooded rivers washing away houses, and by landslides, not by their own foolishness.

People holding umbrellas waded through knee-deep water

What was the purpose of those umbrellas, then? Keep you nice and dry, did they? You can always rely on the locals to perform a ritual and pretend it's the same thing as thought.

Over 70 dead now - just awful. What on earth did the Japanese people do to deserve the wretched luck they seem to have? RIP to them all.

Just from reading today's Yom, it's clear that in a typhoon you're damned if you do and damned if you don't - one person killed in their own home as it was washed away in a landslide, one person killed as they left their house heading for the safety of an evacuation center... Sometimes in a natural disaster, no way is the right way to keep safe.

Years ago I made several visits to Totsukawa-mura in south central Nara prefecture. The mountain sides are extremely steep, so steep, a unique architectural design was developed so the homes could "hug" the mountains. It's so remote in that region, folks don't speak Kansai-ben as in the rest of Nara-ken, but Totsukawa-ben which was derived from the language spoken in Edo. A real jewel and the kindest people in the world. And now so much loss and sadness. RIP.

Potentially more casualties than Irene which was a bigger storm Japan is more mountainous but did the authorities do a good enough job in preparing/evacuating people???

DentShopSep. 04, 2011 - 04:00PM JST

Do the maths here. 6 dead. 120 million people. Thats about 1 in 20 million chance of being killed. I will take those odds. Half of the people died doing things that could be deemed dangerous, like surfing, being too close to swollen rivers in the dark, trying to repair roofs at night...

You do the maths. You might as well have used 7 billion, or whatever the world's population currently stands at. There are not 120 million people in the path of this typhoon, not even close. And we now find that there are 17 confirmed dead & 54 missing. If you're not able to suggest sensible numbers for either your numerator or your denominator then it's rather difficult to take anything you say on the subject seriously.

24 confirmed dead, 54 missing. Nature in Japan can frequently be harsh.

While the numbers are statistically low, they are pretty important to the people impacted by the typhoon. Historically, typhoons have protected Japan from invasion by sailing vessels. In September 1945 my father rode out a typhoon in Wakaura Bay south of Wakayama City. In combat for 30 months during 1943 through 1945, he said it was the most terrifying thing he did during his years in the Pacific. Typhoons are hurricanes in the northern Asian Pacific. In the southern Pacific they are cyclones. Off the west coast of North American they are hurricanes. In concept, they are all the same type of circular low-pressure storms. I pray for Japan.

Sometimes I feel that Japan will unfortunately dissapear from the map due to all these same natural disasters as supposedly Atlantis had, right before it sunk.

Mr Rodriguez; There is quite a large group of people in Japan who do belive that most of Japan will be wiped from the map soon. Most think it will be in 2012, i guess with refernece to the Mayan calender. No doubt in the modren world things like11-3 and this type of news affects people and creates negative thinking even PTSD in some. It is all very sad.

Very true Steve, sad indeed. Japan is getting continuously hit really hard lately, lets hope these predictions and natural disasters won't be Japan's demised.