TOKYO, September 28 — Typhoon Dujuan struck southwestern Japan on Monday, September 28, 2015, prompting authorities to urge millions of residents to evacuate as the storm brought violent winds, torrential rain and widespread disruption to the country. The typhoon had earlier been classified as a super typhoon and made landfall in Taiwan the same day, before crossing the East China Sea and hitting southwestern Japan, including the Okinawa island chain and the main island of Kyushu.
Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported that evacuation advisories were issued for millions of people across the affected regions, with local governments opening shelters and urging residents in low-lying and coastal areas to move to safety. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of record rainfall, high waves and the risk of landslides and flooding.
Japanese officials, including the chief cabinet secretary, held emergency meetings to coordinate the response, and the prime minister’s office set up a crisis management centre. The government deployed police, firefighters and self-defence forces personnel to assist with rescue and evacuation efforts. Authorities warned that the storm could trigger mudslides in mountainous areas already saturated by earlier rainfall.
The storm’s arrival in Japan came just weeks after another typhoon, Etau, caused deadly flooding and landslides in the country in early September 2015.
Transport and power disrupted across East Asia
Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights, ferry services were suspended, and rail operators halted or delayed trains, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. Power outages affected hundreds of thousands of households at the height of the storm. The typhoon also disrupted air travel across East Asia, with cancellations reported at airports in Taiwan, Japan and eastern China.
Dujuan formed in the western Pacific Ocean in mid-September 2015 and intensified rapidly as it tracked northwestward. It reached peak intensity with sustained winds estimated at around 205 kilometres per hour (about 125 miles per hour), equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, before weakening slightly ahead of its Taiwan landfall.
After crossing Taiwan, where it caused at least two deaths and injured more than 300 people, the storm moved toward mainland China and Japan. In Japan, the typhoon’s outer bands and core brought heavy rain to Okinawa and Kyushu.
Storm weakens, but forecasters warn of continued rain
The storm weakened as it moved across the Sea of Japan and was downgraded to a tropical storm by the evening of September 28, 2015, but forecasters warned that heavy rain would continue in northern Japan. No immediate comprehensive damage estimates were available, but the storm was expected to cause significant economic losses, particularly in agriculture and transportation. Dujuan was the 21st named storm of the 2015 Pacific typhoon season, a season that saw several powerful typhoons affect East Asia.
The event highlighted the vulnerability of Japan’s densely populated coastal regions to increasingly intense typhoons, and authorities reiterated calls for residents to heed evacuation orders and remain vigilant. What to watch next: whether Japanese authorities release comprehensive damage assessments in the coming days, and whether the pattern of back-to-back typhoon strikes — Etau in early September, Dujuan before the month was out — continues through the remainder of the 2015 season.
