The Isewan Typhon was named after Isewan Bay by the Japan Meteorological Agency because this area suffered the worst damage. A 12-foot storm surge broke levees and caused massive flooding to the coast and as far as five miles inland.
What is a Typhoon?
A typhoon is the same as a hurricane but meteorologists follow the rule that Pacific storms occurring west of the International Date Line are called typhoons. Storms east of the Date Line and those in the Atlantic Ocean are called hurricanes.
Formation of Typhoon Vera
On September 21, 1959, an area of low pressure located off the coast of Guam formed into a tropical storm. By the next day, Vera rapidly intensified and was declared a typhoon. Moving northwestward, the storm continued to intensify and peak winds were measured at 190 mph.
As the storm merged with strong atmospheric winds and passed over warm water, Typhoon Vera did not weaken. It remained a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale when it made landfall on September 26, 1959 at the Kansai region of southern Japan.
Destruction Caused by Typhoon Vera
Ise Bay was the hardest hit area. The storm surge was over 12 feet high and it caused the tide to rise higher than sea level. High waves knocked out levees on the coastline and flooded the land that was lying below sea level.
The city of Nagoya, which is situated on the coast of Ise Bay was destroyed by flooding and by floating timber from the port facilities. The city mainly consisted of weak wooden buildings. Transportation and communication lines were severed as well as ruination of crops and seawalls.
Typhoon Vera weakened slightly and hit Tokyo-Yokohama with winds of 92 mph and caused widespread flooding in the streets. Total damage to Japan was estimated at $261 million USD.
In a report, Trends in Disaster Management Measures, published by Suminao Murakami of the Laboratory of Urban Safety Planning, the final statistics of the damage caused by Typhoon Vera were “4,697 deaths, 401 people missing, 38,921 injured, and 557,501 houses destroyed.”
With the high death toll and over 1.5 million people left homeless, there were major outbreaks of dysentery, tetanus, and other epidemics.
Aftermath of Typhoon Vera
The Japanese government realized it needed to offer better protection from storm surges. As a result, it built concrete breakwaters, dikes and seawalls along the coastlines of bays that are most vulnerable to storm surges.
It also created a storm warning system by building a weather observatory at the peak of Mt. Fuji as well as a network of observation systems throughout Japan. The radar towers on top of Mt. Fuji extract data from weather satellites and cover an area of 500 miles.
Just like rebuilding Tokyo after the great earthquake of 1923, the Japanese government realized that establishing better standards for typhoons would help minimize the catastrophic effects of natural disasters.
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