NAGANO: A car sits next to a badly damaged home in Nagano on October 15, 2019, after Typhoon Hagibis hit Japan on October 12 unleashing high winds, torrential rain and triggered landslides and catastrophic flooding. - AFP

TOKYO: Japan's
government said Wednesday it would set aside millions of dollars to help areas
devastated by Typhoon Hagibis, which killed more than 70 people across the
country. Hagibis slammed into Japan on Saturday, unleashing fierce winds and
unprecedented rain that triggered landslides and caused dozens of rivers to
burst their banks. By midday yesterday, the government put the toll at 74, with
more a dozen people still missing.

Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe said his government would offer 710 million yen ($6.5 million) to
help areas affected by the storm. The money will come from some a 500 billion
yen emergency reserve, he said. Tokyo will also fast-track the disbursement of
subsidies to more than 300 disaster-hit municipalities. "The government
will stand united to tackle the issue of supporting victims, so that they will
be able to return to normal life as quickly as possible," Abe said.

As of Wednesday
morning, more than 10,000 households were still suffering from electricity
blackouts, while more than 110,000 households are without running water, top
government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "Today, too, rescue
workers are making their utmost efforts in search and rescue work," he
said. "Due to the heavy rains we've experienced, the level of water is
rising in rivers and there are spots where the ground is getting muddy."
"We call on people to keep vigilant about landslides and floods," he
added.

Television
footage showed devastated residents returning to homes filled with brown mud,
and rescuers searching a hillside for a family missing after a landslide. The
country's northeast was particularly hard hit by the typhoon -- with a death
toll of 26 in Fukushima prefecture, the highest among the 36 of Japan's 47
prefectures that were affected.

Collapsed
embankments were observed at around 80 locations along 55 rivers in the
country, the infrastructure ministry said, as it continues to assess the extent
of the damage. Local trains have gradually resumed operation but some
Shinkansen bullet trains were still suspended in the hard-hit Nagano and
Niigata regions in central Japan. - AFP