Rescue efforts underway as Typhoon Hagibis kills 11 in Japan
Tokyo: Japan's military scrambled Sunday to rescue people trapped by flooding after powerful Typhoon Hagibis ripped across the country, killing at least 11 people and leaving more than a dozen missing.
The storm's heavy rain triggered deadly landslides and caused rivers to burst their banks. The destruction forced Rugby World Cup organisers to cancel the third match of the tournament though the key Japan-Scotland clash will go ahead.
By Sunday morning, the significantly weakened storm had moved back off land, but serious flooding was reported in central Japan's Nagano, where a burst levee sent water from the Chikuma river gushing into residential neighbourhoods, flooding homes up to the second floor.
Japan's military deployed helicopters to rescue people seen standing on balconies waving towels to attract attention.
"Overnight, we issued evacuation orders to 427 households, 1,417 individuals," Yasuhiro Yamaguchi, an emergency official in Nagano city, told AFP, adding that it was unclear how many homes had been affected.
Aerial footage showed a row of bullet trains half-submerged in muddy waters at a depot in Nagano.
Hagibis smashed into the main Japanese island of Honshu around 7:00 pm (1000 GMT) Saturday as one of the most violent typhoons in recent years, with wind gusts of up to 216 kilometres per hour.
Well before making landfall, the outer bands of the storm claimed their first victim, a driver whose van was flipped over in the strong gusts.
Several more deaths were confirmed Saturday night, including a man killed in a landslide and another pulled from a flooded home.
And the toll continued to rise as the full scale of the disaster became clearer Sunday morning, with bodies recovered from submerged cars and landslides across several regions of the country.
National broadcaster NHK said at least 99 people had been injured and more than a dozen were missing after the storm.
Among the missing were eight people from a cargo ship that sank Saturday night in Tokyo Bay. The coast guard said they had rescued four of the Panama-flagged ship's crew but were still searching for the others.
At the storm's peak, more than seven million people were placed under non-compulsory evacuation orders, with tens of thousands heeding the call and moving into government shelters.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest-level rain disaster warning, saying "unprecedented" downpours were expected.
"The water came up higher than my head in the house," Hajime Tokuda, a finance professional living in Kawasaki near Tokyo told AFP. He moved to his family's home nearby, but that flooded too and they had to be rescued by boat.
In Saitama's Higashi Matsuyama city, northwest of Tokyo, rice and flower farmers were counting their losses, with water submerging warehouses full of freshly harvested product.
"We never had a flood like this before in this neighbourhood," said one farmer, who declined to give his name. "We cannot even go into the flower warehouse due to the water. I don't know where to start cleaning this mess."
The storm also brought travel chaos during a long holiday weekend in Japan, with flights grounded and both local and bullet trains serving Tokyo suspended fully or partially.
But Sunday morning, train services were resuming and operations were slowly restarting at the two airports serving the capital, although many flights remained cancelled.
The storm had already caused havoc for the sports world, forcing the delay of Japanese Grand Prix qualifiers and the cancellation of two Saturday Rugby World Cup matches.
On Sunday morning, organisers said they had been forced to cancel a third fixture -- Namibia-Canada -- but gave the go-ahead to three others including a crunch Japan-Scotland game in Yokohama, near Tokyo.
Scotland faced elimination if the match was cancelled and had threatened legal action if it was not played.
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Misuse of power, money to control election mechanism seen during Maharashtra polls: Sharad Pawar
Pune (PTI): NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday claimed the misuse of power and money to control the entire election mechanism, which was never before seen in any state assembly or national polls, was witnessed in Maharashtra.
Pawar made the statement when he visited senior activist Dr Baba Adhav, who is protesting against the alleged "misuse of EVMs" in the recent state polls in Maharashtra.
Adhav, who is in his 90s, began his three-day protest at Phule Wada, the residence of social reformer Jyotiba Phule, in the city on Thursday.
The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies, the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), have been alleging manipulation of EVMs in the recently held Maharashtra Assembly elections, which saw a landslide victory by the Mahayuti.
The Mahayuti, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP, won 230 out of 288 assembly seats in the November 20 polls, while the MVA managed just 46 seats.Talking to reporters, Pawar said elections were conducted recently in the country, and there is a restlessness among the people about these.
Baba Adhav's agitation represents this restlessness, he said.
He said, "There is a murmur among the people that the recent polls in Maharashtra saw 'misuse of power' and 'floods of money', which was never seen in the past. Such things are heard of in local-level polls, but taking over the entire election mechanism with the help of money and misuse of power was not seen before. However, we witnessed it in Maharashtra, and people are restless now."
He added that people were recalling late socialist ideologue Jaiprakash Narayan and felt somebody should take a step forward.
"I heard Baba Adhav has taken a lead into this issue and is agitating at Phule Wada. His protest gives hope to the people, but it is not enough. A mass revolt is necessary, as the danger of the parliamentary democracy getting destroyed looms," Pawar said.
The former Union minister said those who have reins of the country in their hands are least bothered about this.
"Despite widespread discussion over it (alleged misuse of EVMs) in the country, whenever the opposition tries to raise the issue in the Parliament, they are not allowed to speak. Opposition leaders have been seeking an opportunity to speak on these issues for six days, but their demands have not been accepted even once. It shows they want to attack parliamentary democracy," he claimed.
He said Dr Adhav's protest is a fine example of someone revolting against the issue and expressed confidence that his protest will create a ripple effect.
