Japan's main islands bracing for powerful Typhoon Vongfong after it hits Okinawa
PUBLISHED ON OCT 12, 2014 12:45 PM
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TOKYO (AFP) - Powerful Typhoon Vongfong was churning towards Japan's main islands
Sunday after strong winds and heavy rain left 23 injured in the south.
The monster storm hit the southern Okinawan islands over the weekend and is now moving
towards the main Kyushu and Honshu islands, where it is due to make landfall as early as
Monday morning, the national weather agency said.
Vongfong was in the southern area of Kagoshima at 2am GMT on Sunday, the
meteorological agency said, placing it around 230km west of Amami-Oshima island. It is
packing gusts of up to 180kmh as it moves north-northwest. "The typhoon is feared to go
near or make landfall on the Kyushu and Honshu main islands through Monday to Tuesday,"
meteorologist Hiroshi Sasaki told reporters.
At least 23 people have been injured in the southernmost Okinawa prefecture, including a
man in his 20s and a nine-year-old girl who had their fingers cut off by a door slamming due
to ferocious winds. "These are two separate cases, but in both cases they lost one of their
fingers as the door closed violently due to the strong winds," said a local official.
The typhoon came just a week after another strong tropical storm whipped through the
country, leaving 11 people dead or missing.
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PSI in unhealthy range again after remaining in moderate range most evening
PUBLISHED ON OCT 11, 2014 11:10 PM
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Air quality in Singapore hit unhealthy levels again on Saturday night. This file photo was taken on Oct 8, 2014. -- ST FILE
PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
BY YEO SAM JO
SINGAPORE - Air quality in Singapore hit unhealthy levels again on Saturday night, with
the three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) inching up to 102 at 11pm from 99 at 10pm. It
was in the moderate range for most of the evening.
In the afternoon, the three-hour PSI, a measure of air quality here, reached 101 at 1pm, and
had gone up to 106 by 2pm. At 6pm, however, the reading dipped to a moderate level of 89.
Air quality is considered unhealthy when PSI readings range from 101 to 200, and prolonged
strenuous outdoor physical exertion should be reduced or avoided.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said in an update on Saturday that it has been
"slightly hazy" in Singapore since morning, with elevated levels of air pollutant PM2.5 (fine
particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size) in most parts of the island during the late
afternoon.
It attributed the conditions to smoke haze in the surrounding region blown in by prevailing
southerly to southeasterly winds. In its daily haze advisory on Friday, the agency said that
eight and 48 hotspots were detected in Sumatra and Kalimantan respectively, where
widespread smoke haze was visible.
Hazy conditions are forecasted to continue for the rest of the day, with overall air quality
hovering in the high end of the moderate range. Thundery showers and "occasional slight
haze" are expected over Singapore tomorrow, added the NEA.
yeosamjo@sph.com.sg
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Hazy conditions to persist on Sunday, PSI to fluctuate between moderate and unhealthy
PUBLISHED ON OCT 12, 2014 10:12 AM
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The Singapore skyline shrouded in haze on Oct 6, 2014. -- ST PHOTO FILE
Hazy conditions persisted overnight with the three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI)
reaching 94 at 9am on Sunday.
The haziness was due to smoke haze from Singapore's surrounding region, blown in by the
prevailing winds, said the National Environment Agency (NEA).
At 7am on Sunday, the one-hour concentrations of PM2.5 was 47 - 54 ug/m3, and the 24-hr
PSI was 90 -104, in the Moderate to Unhealthy range.
For Sunday, the prevailing winds are forecast to be light and variable in direction. Thundery
showers are expected in the afternoon, said NEA.
The current hazy conditions are expected to persist, and the overall 24-hour PSI is expected
to fluctuate between the high-end of the Moderate range and the low-end of the
Unhealthy range.
Given the air quality forecast for the next 24 hours, healthy persons should reduce prolonged
or strenuous outdoor physical exertion, said NEA.
The elderly, pregnant women and children should minimise prolonged or strenuous outdoor
physical exertion, while those with chronic lung or heart disease should avoid prolonged or
strenuous outdoor physical exertion.
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About 100,000 evacuated as cyclone Hudhud bears down on India coast
PUBLISHED ON OCT 11, 2014 5:16 PM
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Children sit on fishing boats by the shore before being evacuated, at Visakhapatnam district in the southern Indian state of
Andhra Pradesh on Oct 11, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
PUDIMADAKA (Reuters) - At least 100,000 people were evacuated on India's eastern
seaboard on Saturday as cyclone Hudhud bore down, threatening to devastate farmland and
fishing villages when it hits the coast on Sunday morning.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) rated Hudhud as a"very severe cyclonic storm"
that could pack gusts of up to 165 kmh and dump more than 24.5cm of rain in some places
when it makes landfall.
Around 100,000 people have been evacuated in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh to highrise buildings, shelters and relief centres, with plans to move a total of 300,000 to safety.
Authorities further north in Odisha state said they were monitoring the situation and would, if
necessary, move 300,000 people most at risk.
"We have already shifted about 10,000 people from low-lying areas and plan to evacuate
14,000 more," N. Yubaraj, administrative chief of the coastal district of Visakhapatnam
district, told Reuters.
Visakhapatnam, also known as Vizag, is the largest city in Andhra Pradesh and hosts a major
Indian naval base.
In Pudimadaka, a coastal village where many are fishermen, locals have been reluctant to
leave despite forecasts warning that a major cyclone was coming since the middle of this
week.
"People are adamant. They are not willing to go. For the past three days we have been
convincing them. Thank God. Now they agreed," Vasantha Rayudu, a local administrative
officer said while supervising the evacuation work.
"We convinced the people after holding a series of discussions with the village elders," said
Rayudu, sitting in a small room with dozens of officials and policemen as huge waves
crashed on the coast few metres away.
As a man beat a small drum and urged people by a loudspeaker to board nearby buses, tea
seller V. Varalakshmi said she had packed her bags, but did not want to go.
"For the past 14 years, I have been selling tea here, the sea has never caused any harm to us,"
the 52-year-old woman said as she served a customer.
Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are common at this time of year. These often cause deaths,
mass evacuations of coastal villages, disruption of power and phone services as well as
widespread damage to crops and property in eastern India and Bangladesh.
Hudhud was tracking west-northwest, around 330km off the coast, and was strong enough to
have a "high humanitarian impact" on more than 10 million people, the Global Disaster Alert
and Coordination System (GDACS), run by the United Nations and the European
Commission, said.
The system also forecast a storm surge of 1.7m. The IMD said this could result in flooding of
low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.
The evacuation effort was comparable in scale to the one that preceded Cyclone Phailin
exactly a year ago, and which was credited with minimising the fatalities to 53. When a huge
storm hit the same area 15 years ago, 10,000 people died.
Authorities have been stocking cyclone shelters with dry rations, water purification tablets
and generators. They have opened up 24-hour emergency control rooms and dispatched
satellite phones to officials in charge of vulnerable districts.
"Hudhud is now the size of Phailin, though not yet as strong," said Eric Holthaus, a US-based
meteorologist at online magazine Slate.
"It's strengthened overnight, and most computer models are intent on bringing it up to nearly
the same strength as Phailin was at landfall.
"It's worrying that international agencies are rating Hudhud's current strength higher than
IMD's peak forecast, but we can only hope that the evacuations under way are sufficient to
protect those in the storm's path," Holthaus said.
Forecasters say that, after making landfall, Hudhud is expected to lose some of its potency. It
is likely to weaken later on Monday to a depression with peak gusts of 65 kmh.
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Cyclone Hudhud reaches peak strength of up to 195 kmh, pounds India's eastern seaboard
PUBLISHED ON OCT 12, 2014 12:27 PM
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VISAKHAPATNAM, India (Reuters) - Cyclone Hudhud, packing gusts of up to 195 kmh,
reached peak strength and caused extensive damage to India's eastern seaboard on Sunday
morning. It was expected to hit the coast with full force around noon local time.
India's disaster relief agency organised the evacuation of more than 150,000 people on
Saturday to minimise the toll from Hudhud - which is similar in size and power to cyclone
Phailin that devastated the area a year ago to the day.
In and around the city of Visakhapatnam - known to locals as Vizag and home to a major
naval base - strengthening winds were already causing extensive damage and knocking out
power supplies. "Hundreds of trees have been uprooted and power lines knocked down," Mr
K. Hymavathi, the special commissioner for disaster management for Andhra Pradesh state,
told Reuters by telephone.
Streets in Vizag that had been bustling on Saturday were deserted as shrill, roaring winds
lashed the city, smashing windows and damaging buildings. With power out, many people
had to resort to back-up generators.
Vizag port suspended operations on Saturday night, with the head of the port saying that 17
ships which had been in the harbour were moving offshore where they would be less at risk
from high seas.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) rated Hudhud as a very severe cyclonic storm
that could pack gusts of 195 kmh and dump more than 24.5cm of rain in some places when it
makes landfall.
As of 6.30am the cyclone was located 100km south-east of Vizag. "We are constantly
monitoring. We are calling it a severe cyclonic storm. We are expecting the landfall around
noon today," Mr B.P. Yadav, head of the National Weather Forecasting Centre at the IMD,
told Reuters.
The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), run by the United Nations
and the European Commission, forecast even higher peak wind speeds of 212 kmh. That
would make Hudhud a Category 4 storm capable of inflicting "catastrophic" damage.
Around 150,000 people were evacuated on Saturday in Andhra Pradesh to high-rise buildings,
shelters and relief centres, authorities said. On Sunday, some in districts less at risk were
allowed to return home.
Thousands more were moved to safety further north in the state of Odisha.
Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are common at this time of year. These often cause deaths,
mass evacuations of coastal villages, disruption of power and phone services as well as
damage to crops and property in eastern India and Bangladesh.
The cyclone was strong enough to have a "high humanitarian impact" on nearly 11 million
people, the GDACS said in an updated bulletin.
The IMD forecast a storm surge of 1-2 metres above high tide that could result in flooding of
low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.
The evacuation effort was comparable in scale to the one that preceded Cyclone Phailin
exactly a year ago, and which was credited with minimising fatalities to 53. When a huge
storm hit the same area 15 years ago, 10,000 people died.
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