The massive Typhoon Hagibis is currently making its way directly for Shizuoka and is expected to make landfall in the next few hours. It seems like it’s been here for ages already, though, as the wind has been howling and it’s been tipping it down since last night.

The central supermarket had rows upon rows of empty shelves yesterday, as people stockpiling (including myself) cleaned it out of goods. I had to go to four different places before I could find any water on sale.

There are fears of power outages and cuts to the water supply, so the bath is full just in case and plenty of rice is cooked and ready to go.

Evacuation advisories have also been issued, so our bags are ready if we are ordered to move to a local school, where people assemble to wait out natural disasters. The elderly and young children have already been moved there.

Luckily for us, our area is fairly elevated and we live on the third floor, so the risk of flooding is low. However, there is a large hill relatively nearby, so landslides cannot be ruled out.

Spending the day with the heavy shutters down makes you think it’s still night and is pretty depressing. We’ve opened the windows a few times to let some air in and to get some natural light, but it’s not really enough. I can’t imagine how people living in the far north cope.

Meanwhile, the nation holds its breath as to what will happen when the typhoon actually hits. Rivers are close to bursting as it is, and homes and roads have already been flooded and roofs blown off.

It seems pointless to talk about rugby at this time, but a game will be going on in Fukuoka later on and tomorrow the group stage will come to an end.

Hopefully the damage from the typhoon won’t be too bad and Japan can quickly move forward, as it has done so many times before.

Today’s Match
Ireland vs Samoa (1945 JST) (Fukuoka Hakatanomori Stadium, Fukuoka)

Tomorrow’s Matches
Namibia vs Canada (1215 JST) (Kamaishi Memorial Recovery Stadium, Kamaishi)
USA vs Tonga (1445 JST) (Hanazono Rugby Stadium, Osaka)
Wales vs Uruguay (1715 JST) (Kumamoto Stadium, Kumamoto)
Japan vs Scotland (1945 JST) (International Stadium, Yokohama)

Expression of the day
気を付けて下さい! (ki wo tsukete kudasai)
Which means…
(Take care.)

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