Typhoon Roke

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's weather agency warned on Tuesday of heavy rainfall in an extensive area encompassing southwestern to northeastern Japan due to a strong typhoon, amid heightening fears of further landslides and flooding in the Kii Peninsula in western Japan, already devastated by a deadly typhoon earlier this month.

Mud dams produced earlier by Typhoon Talas in Wakayama Prefecture and elsewhere were on the verge of bursting on Tuesday after downpours from Typhoon Roke, moving eastward over waters south of Kyushu, brought water levels to the brim in the morning and prompted authorities to evacuate more residents.

Typhoon Roke is expected to make landfall in western Japan on Tuesday. Picking up speed as it moves eastward, the typhoon may land as it approaches closest to Japan's main island of Honshu on Wednesday, the Japan Meterological Agency said.

Tatsuo Hirano, disaster management minister, told a morning news conference that rainwater accumulating behind the mud dams in Wakayama's Tanabe has "gradually begun to overflow."

Land ministry officials warned of an increased likelihood of the breaching of the dams and landslides, although none had yet been observed as of 11 a.m.

Record rainfalls for September were logged in areas in Miyazaki, Kochi and Aichi prefectures. Among them, Misato town in Miyazaki was pounded by 87 millimeters of rain an hour.

Up to 500 millimeters of rain is expected in the Tokai, Kinki and Shikoku areas in central and western Japan, and 250 mm in southern Kyushu, as well as the Kanto-Koshin area in central and eastern Japan, in the 24 hours through Wednesday noon, the agency said.

As precipitation increases, some areas may experience torrential rain of over 80 mm an hour.

In Tanabe, local authorities instructed 29 people remaining in an area that could be flooded should the mud dams be breached to evacuate. Officials predict that similar dams in two areas in Nara Prefecture may also overflow as early as Tuesday afternoon.

"It was raining cats and dogs last night," said a 60-year-old farmer who has evacuated from his home in Tanabe to a facility on higher ground. "I was worried about when the dam might burst."

Hirokazu Miyawaki, in charge of the city's disaster prevention, said that while the authorities have done their best to implement evacuation and other measures, "This is something we have never experienced before, so we don't know what is going to happen."

Elsewhere in Japan, evacuation advisories were issued on Awaji Island, Hyogo Prefecture, as well as in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, due to concerns about possible flooding and landslides, affecting over 11,000 people in total.

In Nagoya, the municipal government advised some 400,000 people in 170,000 households to evacuate due to concerns over the possible overflow of two rivers in the city.

As of 11 a.m., Typhoon Roke with an atmospheric pressure of 960 hectopascals was located about 170 kilometers south-southeast of Tanegashima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture. Moving north-northeast at a speed of about 20 kilometers per hour, it was packing strong winds of up to 198 kph, the weather agency said.

Also on Tuesday morning, the central government decided to designate the devastation by Typhoon Talas earlier this month as a serious catastrophe, enabling the state to shoulder 70 to 90 percent of related reconstruction costs in the afflicted areas, mostly in Mie, Nara and Wakayama prefectures.