JAPAN

Typhoon Songda became the worst typhoon to hit Japan in recent years, leaving at least 24 dead by Wednesday morning with the toll expected to rise, authorities and news reports said. The typhoon has injured more than 700 people since Tuesday, when it struck south-western Japan. Another 15 people were reported missing.

An earthquake measuring 4,3 on the Richter scale has hit large areas north of Tokyo but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. Earlier in the day, a strong earthquake measuring 6,4 on the Richter scale jolted western and central Japan, following two major tremors at the weekend.

At least eight people were killed in southern Japan on Tuesday as the powerful Typhoon Songda left a trail of destruction in its wake after making landfall early in the day. News channel NHK estimated that at least 580 people had been injured in the storm, with up to 100 buildings totally destroyed.

Typhoon Songda had injured 21 people by Monday morning as it approached the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, bringing heavy rain and strong winds, officials said. Songda, named after a Vietnamese river, came as the meteorological agency warned that another typhoon, Sarika, was on course to approach Japan this week.

Two earthquakes with magnitudes of 6,9 and 7,4 hit cental and western Japan on Sunday night, injuring at least 46 people and forcing more than 9 000 people to evacuate temporarily due to the danger of tidal waves, police and firefighters said on Monday. People in 10 prefectures were affected by the two quakes.

Powerful Typhoon Chaba, packing winds of up to 144kph, pounded Japan’s main southern island of Kyushu on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring more than 30. In Miyazaki prefecture, the typhoon killed an 82-year-old man and a 71-year-old man in different cities and slightly injured four people.

Japan’s capital has a 90% chance of being devastated by a major earthquake some time in the next 50 years, according to a study by a government panel. The study, released earlier this week, marked the latest attempt by scientists to address one of this quake-prone country’s most pressing concerns: when the next ”big one” will strike.

They trigger fires, prey on the elderly and thrive in the cement jungles of Japanese cities. But they’re not delinquents or gang members. Japan’s latest urban scourge comes not on two legs, but on four: big city rats. Complaints about the rodents have soared over the past decade.

The death toll in Japan from heavy rain and flooding caused by Typhoon Megi climbed to six on Wednesday, with another two people missing, disaster officials said. The bodies of an 84-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman who had been swept to sea were found on Wednesday near Kagawa prefecture.

Hot dog buns filled with ice cream instead of sausages are keeping youth cool this summer in Japan’s western Osaka city, local media reported on Monday. ”Ice dogs” have been made popular by an Rokko Ranch Arai ice-cream shop in downtown Osaka’s America Village.

Demand for rare reptiles as pets has made Japan one of the top markets for smuggled exotic animals and conservationists in the country are concerned that law-enforcement authorities lack teeth to deal with the problem. Lax enforcement of laws against smugglers encourages the underground business.

Japan’s oldest man has died in hospital at the age of 109 years. Minsho Ozawa, a former Buddhist priest in the central city of Yamanashi, passed away on Monday after being hospitalised with pneumonia. He leaves behind 47 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5,2 jolted northern Japan on Wednesday, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, police said. The offshore earthquake was centered about 70km beneath the seabed just off the coast of Iwate prefecture, the Meteorological Agency said.

A Japanese demolition firm has found a smashing way of making a name for itself — through its company song, with lyrics like ”We will destroy houses! We will destroy bridges! We will destroy buildings!”. It is the first time that a ”shaka”, or corporate anthem, has made the charts.

Countries across Asia banned the import of United States beef products on Wednesday after a cow on a Washington state farm tested positive for mad cow disease. Japan, the number-one importer of US beef, imposed an indefinite ban and planned to recall certain meat products already on the market.

Two Japanese satellites have been in trouble following geomagnetic storms triggered by recent solar flares, one of them the largest in three decades, the Japanese space agency said on Thursday. Adeos-2, one of the world’s biggest earth observation satellites, has lost contact with the Earth.

A strong earthquake measuring 5,0 on the Richter scale struck Tokyo and other eastern Japanese areas on Wednesday, leaving at least five people injured. The tremors were powerful enough to make tall buildings in central Tokyo shake noticeably for several seconds.

It will rank as a stunning confession to one of the most bizarre crimes ever committed by a state. This week North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il said his country’s special forces abducted at least a dozen Japanese nationals during the 1970s and 1980s in a fit of patriotic overzealousness.