In the night from 8 to 9 September, typhoon faxai swept across Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Tokyo, and the typhoon was the strongest in Japan’s recent history. With 965 hPa air pressure and wind speeds of up to 210 kilometers per hour, up to 400 millimeters of rain were observed in some places. Next to train delays, school closures and a chaotic situation at Narita airport (some 17000 people were stranded at some point in the terminal) many electric pylons were destroyed and up to 900,000 people were without power. As of today, there are still ca. 500,000 people without power and heavy thunderstorms make the restoration work very difficult, so that some are afraid that the electricity will just be back at the end of the month in some places.
Apart from the lack of power, running water (which is urgently needed to cool down as temperatures still reached 36 degree on 10 september) and food (most stores in Chiba stayed closed due to damage and a lack of power) many people complain about the lack of information and guidance from the government. These adds extra stress to the already severe situation which hits especially elderly, young children and other marginalized members of the society very hard.
With the start of new semester next week, I am currently reworking the content of the course “Sociology of Disaster” to see what can we learn from the disaster and how we can be better prepared.
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