Four dead after powerful Typhoon Dujuan lashes Japan

ByJamie Whitehead and Kurumi Mori, Tokyo correspondent. Updated 5 hours ago.

Key points

• Dujuan had sustained winds of 130km/h (81mph) and gusts of 194km/h.
• She will be speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, and will meet with US President Donald Trump.
• While the Tokyo Game Show, a video game convention, additionally cancelled Monday's programme, concerts scheduled for Monday at the Rock in Japan music festival were cancelled.
• Four individuals have died in Japan after Typhoon Dujuan battered Tokyo and surrounding prefectures with torrential rains and destructive winds, local reports stated.
• The storm cut power for 50, 000 individuals and caused the suspension of hundreds of flights.

In practice, the storm cut power for 50, 000 individuals and caused the suspension of hundreds of flights. Most evacuation orders were lifted on Tueday as the storm pulled away from Japan's eastern coast.

At the height of the storm on Monday, authorities cautioned of an "imminent threat to life" and called on 1.9 million individuals to move to shelters.

For context, the fatalities were from landslides in Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures. Six others were documented missing, public broadcaster NHK noted.

For context, the typhoon is the latest in a series of storms in the Pacific, created more intense by the "super El Niño". It 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 a number of events.

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 the United States as planned.

"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.

Meanwhile, the Yokosuka City Fire Department informed 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.

After a search by rescue crews, she was identified inside the home and pronounced dead, NHK documented.

Separately, Sodegaura City Fire Department in Chiba prefecture informed the BBC a man in his 50s was rescued after getting trapped while working to clear debris at a landslide site.

Meanwhile, the department remarked 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 create them less common in some regions.

As temperatures rise, typhoons that do form are probable to become more intense on average, even so.

Warmer ocean waters mean storms can pick up more energy, leading to higher wind speeds.

And since a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, these storms could additionally 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.

In practice, 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. Extra reporting by Chie Kobayashi and Mark Poynting, climate reporter.

Taken together, the developments around four dead after powerful Typhoon Dujuan lashes Japan point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.