Eerie footage shows the moment strong winds and heavy rains suddenly stop in the eye of the deadly typhoon sweeping across Japan.
Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall on Sunday (18 September) near the city of Kagoshima on the southern tip of the island of Kyushu, one of the four islands that make up the main body of Japan.
It has now been downgraded to a cyclone, but in the days since it first hit it has unleashed record-breaking amounts of rain and claimed the lives of at least four people, with rescue workers warning of mudslides and flooding and as many as 140,000 homes left without electricity.
Dramatic footage shows the land being battered by wind, until the eye of the storm brought with it an eerie calm:
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The footage was filmed by video producer James Reynolds, who filmed himself in the eye of the storm as it passed over Ibusuki, Kagoshima. Within a matter of minutes, the strong winds dropped and the rain ceased, leaving only a strange pressure in the air.
Recalling the moment in an interview with UNILAD, Reynolds explained: "This storm was very large in size, so the night before it hit the winds were starting to increase, whistling through the hotel I was sleeping in, banging on the windows.
"Throughout the day of landfall it kept on building and building until the final burst of maximum wind and sheets of rain in the eyewall of the storm - the worst part which surrounds the eye. And then the sudden calm came in the space of around five minutes, the quickest I’ve ever seen the winds drop off in storm – and then we were in the dead calm eye of the storm."
In that moment, the atmosphere around Reynolds went 'very calm' and the air pressure dropped.
"I could feel my ears have a very dull ache, something I’ve experienced before in the eye of storms," Reynolds said.
The video producer is no stranger to being in storms, having covered more than 70 typhoons and hurricanes over the last 17 years and three typhoons in the last three weeks alone. Locals in Japan are also used to such storms, but Reynolds noticed people 'took this one seriously'.
"Power company crew members were on standby in the hotel to get to work on fixing the electricity grid, boats were in harbour sheltering, flights and trains all cancelled, [and] some windows [were] boarded up or covered in protective netting," he said.
In spite of the extra measures put in place, Reynolds said authorities in the area didn't 'force' evacuations, and instead offered people as much information as possible, including evacuation notices. It was then up to the public to follow the advice.
The storm left Ibusuki with 'quite a lot of tree damage', according to Reynolds, as well as 'flattened rice fields' and reports of people with superficial damage to their property. These are relatively mild impacts in comparison to other areas, which have had cars submerged by flooding, landslides and, as mentioned earlier, deaths.
Reynolds expressed belief the systems Japan has in place to deal with such storms are 'some of the best in the world', but if climate change contributes to even stronger storms in future, he's in no doubt that 'the risks will increase'.
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Topics: Weather, World News
Emily Brown