TOKYO, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Japanese government issued evacuation warnings for over 300,000 people on Monday as typhoon Man-yi hit the main island of Honshu.
An evacuation warning has been sent to residents of Shiga, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures due to the threat from flooding and rivers possibly bursting their banks, following huge rain squalls and high winds.
According to Japan’s NHK television, the typhoon is moving in the northeastern direction at the speed of about 30 kilometers per hour (18.6 mph).
Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were put on alert due to the approaching typhoon to make sure that contaminated water does not overflow in the heavy rain, NHK added.
In March 2011, Japan was hit by a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, claiming more than 15,000 lives and causing a number of explosions at the Fukushima plant.
In what has been dubbed the world's worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl, three of the plant’s reactors underwent a partial meltdown as radiation leaked into the atmosphere, soil and seawater.
