China braces for deadly typhoon as Japan counts human and economic cost

China is bracing itself for the impact of Typhoon Maria, which has already led to the deadliest flood disaster in Japan since 1983, caused huge disruption and will lead to heavy insured losses, not least business interruption. The typhoon skirted past Taiwan and caused much lower damage than originally expected. But it continued northwest toward the eastern coast of China, making landfall around 500km south of Shanghai Wednesday morning. The typhoon could lead to massive economic and insured damage on one of the most densely populated coastlines in the world. Experts believe that such brutal typhoons will become more frequent as sea temperatures continue to rise. Josh Turner, analyst with Four Twenty Seven, a California-based market intelligence provider that provides climate risk analytics for financial markets, said: “Typhoons in the northwest Pacific are common but the rate of intensification of Typhoon Maria is remarkable. As the climate warms, ocean temperatures will rise, adding more fuel for these storms to gather strength.” Broker Aon reported that historic levels of rainfall led to significant flash flooding and mudslides across Japan from 29 June to 8 July. This caused at least 126 fatalities. Nearly 90 others are still officially listed as missing, after more than 1,015 millimeters (40 inches) of rain fell across parts of Kochi, Gifu and Nagano prefectures, and Tokushima. Floodwaters up to five meters in height resulted in business disruption for several automobile and electronic manufacturing facilities, said Aon. “Total economic losses are anticipated to be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars, likely higher. Government officials noted that this is Japan’s deadliest flood disaster since 1983,” added the broker. In a separate statement Steve Bowen, director meteorologist, Aon Benfield, suggested that business interruption losses will be significant. “It will likely be a few days, if not longer, for the remaining closed manufacturing facilities to determine their length of shutdown time. Several companies continue to take stock of how much damage occurred due to water inundation in their facilities, while others are waiting to gauge when conditions will be safe enough for workers to return. Some factories were closed due to damaged infrastructure that made it impossible for workers to safely get to their place of work,” said Mr Bowen. He explained that the event peaked between 5 and 7 July, when the majority of the heaviest rains fell across western and southern Japan. “There havebeen additional showers and thunderstorms since that time, but most water levels have since subsided. A high number of mudslides have left debris strewn over roadways and railways,” he said. “The financial cost of this event remains highly uncertain, but given the number of homes damaged or destroyed – now approaching 20,000 – plus damage to vehicles, agriculture, and infrastructure and business interruption, this is expected to be one of the costlier flood events that Japan has recorded in recent memory,” added Mr Bowen. Mr Turner at Four Twenty Seven explained that because of “above normal” ocean temperatures and very low wind sheer, the storm more than qualified for rapid intensification, after increasing from 70mph winds to 160mph winds in just 24 hours. The analyst said the the storm’s eye passed directly over the Japanese island of Miyakojima and is headed to the west-northwest, just skirting the northern fringe of Taiwan. It is expected to make landfall in eastern China today. “The largest impacts are expected to be from very heavy rain and storm surge flooding in low-lying areas. This is all following extreme and historical flooding in Japan associated in part with a typhoon last week, which led factories to shut down, disrupted economies and damaged buildings, infrastructure and capital. The heavy rain from Maria could result in similar types of economic impacts to businesses in the heavily populated northern Taiwan and eastern China regions,” added Mr Turner. Four Twenty Seven noted that, even if overall frequency of these storms decreases, climate scientists expect that we will see more intense typhoons more often, as a result of the warming climate. It added that a recent study in Nature Geoscience estimated that land-falling typhoons in this region have increased in intensity since the 1970s, with the number of equivalent Category 4 or 5 storms at least doubling.

China braces for deadly typhoon as Japan counts human and economic cost

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