Typhoon No. 7 brought intense rain and strong winds to the Kanto region on Wednesday, causing widespread power outages and infrastructure failures.
The storm's impact highlights the vulnerability of regional power grids and urban traffic systems during extreme weather events, particularly in densely populated prefectures.
Approximately 12,500 households across the Kanto region, including Ibaraki, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Tokyo, and Yamanashi, experienced power outages [1]. The hardest-hit area was Ibaraki prefecture, where roughly 6,550 households lost electricity [1]. Other outages reported by 5 p.m. included about 1,440 households in Chiba [2], 740 in Saitama [2], and 650 in Kanagawa [2].
In Shizuoka Prefecture, the storm caused significant flooding in Shimoda City. A convenience store in the area suffered interior flooding as rainwater breached the building. "It was flowing in through the gaps in the door. I couldn't stop it," a store employee said [1]. Local authorities also issued a level-4 landslide-danger warning for Shimoda City, which remained in effect as the storm passed [1].
Urban infrastructure in Tokyo also faced disruptions. In Tachikawa City, a traffic-signal failure forced local police to abandon electronic controls and direct vehicles using hand signals to maintain traffic flow [1].
The combination of power failures and signal outages created localized chaos across the region. While the total number of affected households varies by reporting time, the scale of the outages indicates a significant disruption to residential life across multiple prefectures [1], [2].
“"It was flowing in through the gaps in the door. I couldn't stop it."”
The simultaneous failure of power grids in Ibaraki and traffic control systems in Tachikawa demonstrates how a single weather system can trigger cascading infrastructure failures. The issuance of a level-4 landslide warning in Shimoda further underscores the immediate geological risks associated with the intense precipitation levels brought by Typhoon No. 7.
