Typhoon Shanshan was one of the strongest typhoons in recent decades, hitting Japan in late August. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued an emergency warning, stating that Shanshan posed a serious threat to the lives of the population. The highest level of danger was declared for more than five million people.
In Oita Prefecture, authorities urged 57,000 people to take life-saving actions, including moving to safe locations or seeking shelter on the upper floors of their homes. In other regions, people were advised to evacuate.
Hisashi Nakamura, a climatologist at the University of Tokyo, noted that the typhoon intensified between August 25th and 27th due to the unusually warm waters of the Philippine Sea, where the surface temperature reached approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
On August 27th, before Shanshan made landfall, bands of heavy rain triggered a landslide that buried a house in the city of Gamagori, near Tokyo, resulting in the deaths of three people.
Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in Kagoshima Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu on August 29th at around 8 a.m. local time. It brought winds of up to 115 miles per hour, torrential rains, and dangerous storm surges, leaving behind damaged buildings, shattered windows, uprooted trees, and overturned vehicles.
According to local authorities, as of Thursday morning, at least one person was missing, and dozens were injured. In some areas, rainfall exceeded 20 inches, and nearly 35 inches of rain was recorded over three days on the Ebino Plateau on Kyushu Island.
The typhoon led to the cancellation of 1,200 flights, including over 400 at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. High-speed train services on the Kyushu Shinkansen and Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen lines were suspended, and sections of major highways were closed. More than 255,000 homes lost power.
Major companies, including automaker Toyota, halted operations at their factories. As Shanshan slowly moved north across Kyushu, it weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. By Friday, it had become a tropical storm with winds reaching up to 45 miles per hour. The storm is expected to move across Japan over the weekend and then reach the capital, Tokyo.
A study published last month showed that in recent years, typhoons in this region have been forming closer to the shoreline, intensifying faster, and maintaining strength longer over land. This poses an increased threat to human life and causes significant economic damage.
The reason for such abnormal typhoon behavior lies in the overheated ocean, and many experts are now discussing this. However, few are talking about the two true causes of the ocean's warming: magma rising, which heats the ocean from below, and plastic breaking down in oceanic water, reducing its thermal conductivity. All the details, as well as solutions to this problem, can be found in the documentary “Water from Air: The Path to Saving Humanity”