125

Recent Extreme Wind Events and Damage Assessment in Japan
Junji MAEDA
Division of Architecture and Urban Design, Kyushu University
6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japane-mail: maeda@arch.kyushu-u.ac.jp

Abstract
In Japan, natural disasters that threaten the living environment of developed urban areas include
typhoons and tornadoes, as well as earthquakes. The change of urban form that has occurred with thevertical development of buildings for the past 30 years has brought about new wind damage situations, andthe damage caused by Typhoon Mireille in 1991 highlighted the need for new wind-resistant measures. In
addition, there is growing concern about the destructive damage caused by recent extreme winds
accompanying tornadoes in residential areas and around public facilities. Even if the area damaged is not solarge, the sudden occurrence of tornadoes has sometimes caused serious destruction and many casualties
within some districts. The wind-induced damage which occurred from 2005 to 2006 as the result of
tornadoes led to operation of a new tornado advisory system. Some measures have recently been taken to
reduce damage caused by wind-borne debris, which is continuously generated under extreme winds. This
report describes recent extreme wind-induced damage in Japan and discusses some features of the damage.
Although the damaged objects were mainly buildings and structures, an accident involving a railcar andanother involving temporary construction are also noted.
Key words: extreme-wind residential damage rate, tornado events, typhoon events, wind-induced
structural damage, wind-induced loss, windy typhoons

1. Introduction – Features of Extreme Wind
Disasters in JapanOne of the typical extreme winds in Japan is generated by typhoons, which are classified into “rainy
typhoons” and “windy typhoons.” Before the 1970s,
when flood control measures were insufficient, floodand landslide disasters over wide areas were the mostserious damage experienced from typhoons. For example, much damage was caused by Typhoon Vera (1959,
known as the Ise Bay Typhoon in Japan), which was oneof the worst natural disasters experienced in Japan, wasmostly due to high tides instead of strong winds. On theother hand, we refer to Typhoons Muroto (1934), Ruth
(1951), Marie (1954, Toyamaru in Japan) and Nancy(1961, the 2nd Muroto in Japan), etc., as windy
typhoons which have hit Japan’s mainland. Then, there
was a period of 30 years where no windy typhoons
struck Japan until Typhoon Mireille in 1991, a windy
typhoon, which caused severe damage.
During this period, wooden houses characteristic ofJapanese residences experienced much damage caused
by earthquakes. The resulting rapid improvement of
their earthquake resistant also improved their wind
resistance. As a result, the rates of casualties and completely-destroyed buildings caused by the most recent
Global Environmental Research
13/2009: 125-132
printed in Japan

typhoons have decreased by more than 90% as compared to those of the 1970s, as shown in Fig. 1 (Ishizaki
et al., 1970, Hayashi & Mitsuta, 1992). Although it istrue that the number of damaged buildings and injured
people caused by recent typhoons has decreased substantially, the damage to roofing material and external
cladding of buildings and structures has not decreased as

Fig. 1 Rate of completely-destroyed houses (Ishizaki et al.,1970; Hayashi & Mitsuta, 1992).
©2009 AIRIES126

J. MAEDA

much. Losses from damage caused by the major windy
typhoons since the 1990s is listed in Table 1 (Architectural Institute of Japan, 2006). Typhoon Mireille in 1991
established a new world record of payment by insurancecompanies at that time for wind damage. The record ofloss payments associated with Typhoon Mireille wasbroken by those for Hurricane Andrew in the following
year 1992, and so the two worst economic losses in theworld caused by natural disasters at that time were both
listed as being associated with extreme wind damage.
Following this, the loss payments made against the winddamage caused by Typhoon Songda (2004), one of ten
typhoons that landed on the mainland of Japan in 2004,
is close to that of Typhoon Mireille. In addition, winddamage to public structures and to lifeline facilities,
such as power grids that have developed over the past
30 years, have frequently occurred. These situations
have been the motivation for new countermeasureresearch as well as residential damage countermeasures.
Since the end of the 1990s, tornadoes, gust fronts
and other phenomena, which cause serious gusty winddamage have drawn attention as other extreme wind
events. Wind damage caused by tornadoes or gusty
winds corresponding to F0 – F1 on the Fujita scale isreported somewhere almost every year. In 1990 tornado
damage in Mobara City, Chiba was caused by one of thebiggest tornadoes ever recorded in Japan, corresponding
to F3 on the Fujita scale. In addition, tornadoes in
Toyohashi F3 (1999), Saga F2 (2004), Nobeoka F2(2006) and Saroma F3 (2006) caused comparable damage. In Japan tornadoes rarely cause death, but morethan one death was recorded by the F2 Nobeoka tornado
and the F3 Saroma tornado in 2006.
This paper describes the recent extreme wind eventsand the resulting damage in Japan. Generally in Japan, atyphoon is named by a number, based on the order ofoccurrence in a given year. Below, a typhoon’s name isdescribed by attaching its inherent name to the year ofoccurrence and ordinal number for that year. For example, the 19th typhoon in 1991 is described as “Typhoon
Mireille (T9119).”

2. Extreme Wind Damage Caused by Recent
Typhoons
Typhoon Mireille (T9119) recorded new maximum
instantaneous wind speeds at more than 26 meteorological stations as well as new maximum wind speeds at
12 stations across Japan. There are many reports on thewind damage caused by Typhoon Mireille (Mitsuta,1992). Typhoon Mireille (T9119) claimed 62 lives andinjured 1,261 people. Although the number of the deadand injured was not large when compared with earlier
typhoon disasters, Mireille caused the greatest extent of
extreme wind-induced damage at that time, as symbolized by the payments made by insurance companies of
6 billion US dollars. Hence, Typhoon Kinna (T9117),
which hit Japan on the same course just two weeks
before Typhoon Mireille, and Typhoon Yancy (T9313),
which set high wind speed records in the southern
Kyushu region, did not receive as much attention(Maeda, 1992). Below is an introduction to the major
typhoon damage which was caused by their extreme
winds since the 1990s, in comparison with Typhoon
Mireille (T9119).
Figure 2 illustrates the tracks of the major windy
typhoons (Mireille T9119, Yancy T9313, Bart T9918
and Songda T0418) which struck Japan since the 1990s(Research Committee on Wind-Induced Disaster, 2000,
Research Committee on Wind-Induced Disaster, 2005,
Architectural Institute of Japan, 2006). All of the
Typhoons Mireille, Bart and Songda entered the Sea ofJapan after making landfall on northern Kyushu, and somost of mainland Japan was located at the eastern sideof the typhoons. Such a typhoon is often called a “Sea ofJapan” Typhoon and it is known that the wind damage ismore severe to the eastern side of a typhoon with anortherly track in the Northern Hemisphere because themovement speed of the typhoon is added to the windspeed around the typhoon center. Figure 3 shows the

Table 1 Losses paid out due to the major windy typhoons sincethe 1990s.
Rank

Typhoon

Date

Payment
of Insurance

1

Mireille(T9119)Sep. 26-28, 1991

$ 6.0 billion

2

Songda(T0418)Sep. 4-8, 2004

$ 4.1 billion

3

Bart(T9918)Sep. 21-25, 1999

$ 3.3 billion

4

Yancy
(T9313)

Sep.3, 1993

$ 1.8 billion

5

Vicki
(T9807)

Sep. 22, 1998

$ 1.7 billion

6

Tokage(T0423)Oct. 20, 2004

$ 1.5 billion(unit US$)Yancy(T9313)
Bart(T9918)
Mireille(T9119)Songda(T0418)

Fig. 2 Courses of the main windy typhoons (MireilleT9119, Yancy T9313, Bart T9918, Songda T0418)
since the 1990s.

Recent Extreme Wind Events and Damage Assessment in Japan

distribution of damage rate of residential houses caused
by each typhoon. Since a typhoon generally fades withlatitude after landing, the damage tends to decrease innorthern Japan. But it is known that a typhoon occasionally regains strength in the northern part of the Sea ofJapan and can cause much damage in Hokkaido, locatedin northern Japan, which happened in the case of
Typhoon Songda (T0418) (Research Committee on
Wind-Induced Disaster, 2005, Architectural Institute ofJapan, 2006).
From Table 1 it turns out that Typhoon Mireillecaused the most serious damage among recent typhoons.
Because poorly-constructed buildings were renovated insuch a way as to perform higher wind-resistance after
damaged due to typhoons, it may seem that the damage
caused by subsequent typhoons which passed along very
similar courses became less.
Generally the wind damage rate of buildings andstructures, especially residential houses, is related to thegust wind speed (Hayashi & Mitsuta, 1992). Residential
damage is, however, strongly affected by local topography, surrounding obstacles, traditional construction andmaintenance methods, and so the damage factors range
widely (Tomokiyo & Maeda, 2009). Although we canunderstand the damage conditions by site investigation,
it is not easy to estimate the damage that could becaused by a subsequent typhoon. It is necessary to consider the local damage history also to estimate overall
wind damage which might be caused by a subsequent
typhoon.
Typhoon Mireille (T9119) which was responsible forextreme winds over the whole of Japan also caused critical damage to power transmission towers, especially in
Kyushu and Tohoku region (Uematsu et al., 1992,
Tomokiyo & Maeda, 2004). The wind damage to transmission towers at that time covered the widest region
ever experienced. This damage led to the construction ofa wide area network system for wind measurement
using transmission towers (Maeda et al., 1995).
The damage caused by Typhoon Bart (T9918) and
Songda (T0418) has been compared using wind records(Maeda, H. et al., 2005). Both Typhoons were typical127

windy typhoons occurring after Typhoon Mireille(T9119), and furthermore, their tracks were very similar,
as shown in Fig. 2. Figure 4 shows the peak gust speeds
and maximum 10-minute-averaged wind speeds associated with Typhoons Bart and Songda. The patterns ofwind speed distribution and damage due to both
typhoons corresponded with well each other, but thedamage rate resulting from Typhoon Bart was a little
higher because the wind speeds associated with
Typhoon Bart were a little higher. Figure 5 shows thedamage rates of residential houses in each city in
Kyushu arranged by maximum 10-minute wind speeds
and peak gust winds (Tomokiyo & Maeda, 2009).
Although the figure indicates the damage rate varies
widely even at the same wind speed, it is found that the
maximum gust wind speed is more closely related to thedamage rate than the maximum 10-minute wind speed,
and a gusty wind of around 30 m/s may trigger residential damage. As mentioned, the difference in the wind
resistant performance can result from local traditional
construction methods and the reinforcement/renewal ofhomes damaged by the previous typhoons. This canaffect the damage rate distribution.
One of the most frequent features of the latest structural damage due to strong wind is damage to external
cladding, especially roof materials (Tamura et al., 2005).
Typhoon Songda (T0418) seriously damaged the roofsof public buildings as shown in Fig. 6 (Architectural
Institute of Japan, 2006). Damage to metal roofing andwaterproof sheeting was seen in many damaged buildings, despite the relatively recent completion of construction. Some faults inherent in the construction
process of metal roofing have been pointed out(Architectural Institute of Japan, 2008). Most publicbuildings are expected to be used as shelters in times of
emergency such as the occurrence of natural disasters.
Consequently, the wind vulnerability of metal roofing
needs to be reduced quickly. When ten typhoons struck
the mainland of Japan in 2004, there was a special focus
in post disaster investigations on damage to roofs ofpublic structures. A detailed report on the damage
caused by the ten typhoons in 2004 has been published

Residential
damage rate
10%～
1～10%
0.1～1%
0.01～0.1%～0.01%(a) Typhoon Mireille (T9119)(b) Typhoon Bart (T9918)(c) Typhoon Songda (T0418)

Fig. 3 Distribution of damage rate of residential houses caused by typhoons.

128

J. MAEDA
Songda(T0418)

Songda(T0418)

60
50
40
Bart
(T9918)

30

30
20

20

Bart
(T9918)10m/s(a) Peak gust speedsm/s(b) Max. 10-minute-average wind speeds

Fig. 4 Distributions of peak gust speeds and maximum 10-minute-average wind speeds resulting from typhoons in Kyushu, basedon NeWMeK data.

100%
Rate ofresidential damage

Rate ofresidential damage

100%
10%
1%
0.1%
0%
0.01%
0%
0.001%
0%

10%
1%
0.1%
0%
0.01%
0%

Bart
Songda0.001%
0%0.0001%0%0.0001%
0%

10

20

30

50

70 (m/s)(a) Maximum wind speed

10
10

20

30

50 70 (m/s)(b) Peak gust speed

Fig. 5 Relationship between residential damage rates and wind speeds based on NeWMeK data.

3. Wind Damage Caused by Recent
Tornadoes and Extreme Gusty Winds

Junior high schoolin Ebetsu City

Yamaguchi Center for
Arts and Media
Isumo Dome
Stadium

Spring-8
Itsukushima Shrine
Yamaguchi Kirara Genki Dome
Factory building in Omuta City
Nagasaki West high school

Fig. 6 Damaged roofs of public buildings and path of
typhoon Songda (T0418).

by the Architectural Institute of Japan (Research Committee on Wind-Induced Disaster, 2005, Architectural Institute of Japan, 2006).

So far, a catastrophic tornado exceeding F4, wellknown in North America, has never occurred in Japan.
The latest information on wind damage caused by tornadoes has been reported by Professor Y. Tamura (Tamura,2008). Figure 7 shows the annual variations of gusty
wind events from 1991 to 2007. The number of events
causing structural damage is also shown in Fig. 7. The
sudden increase in the number of events since 2006 may
be due to the inclusion of smaller events rather than achange in meteorological patterns.
Figure 8 shows the number of tornado events
arranged according to the Fujita scale (F scale). Most
tornadoes were classified as being less than F1. The
tornadoes exceeding F1 caused damage to somestructures (Research Committee on Wind-Induced Disaster,2004), however, only 23 such events occurred during thelast eight years. If the gusty wind events that are notrecognized as having been caused by tornadoes arecounted, it is thought that the number of events would
increase further. Figure 8 indicates that the Kyushu andOkinawa districts have higher rates of damage due to F2
tornadoes than other districts, while there were not as
many tornadoes causing damage to the Kinki district.

Recent Extreme Wind Events and Damage Assessment in Japan

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Number of gusts
Number of cases that caused some damage

1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007

Number of cases

Tornado damage often continues to spread by windborne debris in addition to damage caused by windpressure acting directly on structures. In Japan, basic
countermeasures to defend against wind-borne debris
are not yet well developed, but research concerning
damage mitigation to public buildings and infrastructure
is being conducted.
Figure 9 indicates the locations where structural
damage occurred due to the major strong tornadoes andFig. 7 Annual number of gusty wind events causing
damage to structures from 1991 to 2007.

160

Number of gusts

140
120

Hokaido and Tohoku
Hokuriku, Kanto, Koshin and Tokai
Kinki
38
Chugoku and Shikoku
Kyushu and Okinawa

100

16
2

80

21

60

55

40
20
0

1

1

F3

10
11
5
35

8
3
6
4

1

F2

F1～F2

5
4
5

33

2

8

F1

F0～F1

11
10
29
18

F0

Fig. 8 Number of tornado outbreaks arranged according
to the Fujita scale (F scale).

Nov. 2006
Tornado in Saroma Town

Dec. 1990
Tornado in Mobara City
June. 2004
Tornadoin Saga City

Sep. 1999
Tornado in Toyohashi City

Sep. 2006
TornadoFeb. 1990
in Nobeoka City
Tornadoin Makurazaki City

Fig. 9 Locations where structural damage has beencaused by major tornadoes and gusty winds.

129

gusty winds since the 1990s. Some of them are outlined
below.
(1) Makurazaki tornado, Kagoshima, February 1990
Makurazaki City, Kagoshima has experienced many
tornadoes, and is known as a “Tornado City” (Fujita,
1973). This tornado hit a rural area within the city having many traditional Japanese houses and so the damage
expansion caused by wind-borne roof tile debris was
one of the features. Besides structural damage, someelementary school students were injured because thetornado outbreak occurred as they were returning home
after school. The tornado was judged to be F2 or F3
after site investigation of structural damage (Hayashi etal., 1990).
(2) Mobara tornado, Chiba, December 1990
In 1990 a powerful tornado corresponding to F3
moved through Mobara City, Chiba and caused one of
the worst tornadic disasters in Japan. The tornado swept
an area of about 600 m in width and 6.5 km in length,
claiming 1 life and injuring 73 people, and completely
or partially destroyed more than 1,800 homes. Most of
the damaged structures were wooden but steel and reinforced concrete buildings were also damaged. A building constructed of reinforced concrete suffered damage
to most of its window glass (Kanda & Katsura, 1991).
(3) Toyohashi tornado, Aichi, September 1999 (Fig. 10)
The outbreak of tornadoes is not uncommon while atyphoon is approaching. The Toyohashi tornado in 1999
was associated with an approaching typhoon as was theNobeoka tornado in 2006. Four tornadoes struck theurban area of Toyohashi City, Aichi when Typhoon Bart
(T9918) approached the west coast of Kyushu. The
biggest tornado traveled a maximum of 19 km andcompletely or partially destroyed more than 3,000 structures, injuring 450 people. It was classified as an F3
tornado (Hayashi & Ishikawa, 2000).
(4) Saga tornado, Saga, June 2004 (Fig. 11)
An F2 tornado, which hit a residential area in Saga
City, has attracted attention as a big tornado in a region
which rarely experienced tornadoes. Wind-borne debris
caused damage to many structures, but it was observedthat several houses that had been shuttered in the earlymorning suffered less damage. It was recorded that370 structures were fully or partially destroyed, and that
15 people were slightly injured (Maeda, J. et al., 2005).
(5) Nobeoka tornado, Miyazaki, September 2006
Continued outbreaks of tornadoes occurred along theeast coast of Kyushu when Typhoon Shanshan (T0613)
approached the west coast of Kyushu. The biggest
tornado, which hit Nobeoka City, Miyazaki traveled
7.5 km through an urban area, claiming three lives andinjuring 143 people, and damaging more than 1,800
buildings (Maki, 2007). It was the first time that a lossof three lives had been experienced since the Meteorological Agency started tornado records in 1971. A railcar
traveling at reduced speed was overturned by a tornadic
gusty wind and the big unsteady force caused by thegusty wind was brought to wind engineers’ attention(Takeuchi et al., 2008).

130

J. MAEDA(6) Saroma tornado, Hokkaido, November 2006 (Fig. 12)
Although an F3 tornado which hit 350 people livingin the Wakasa district of Saroma Town located in northeastern Hokkaido left a small damaged area 400 m longand between 100 m to 250 m wide, 9 people who werein a temporary office building for construction work,
which was hit directly, lost their lives (ResearchCommittee on Wind-Induced Disaster, 2007).

Fig. 10 Damage by tornado in Toyohashi.

Recently, wind damage caused by gusty winds due toextreme wind events such as downbursts or gust fronts,
etc., as well as typhoons and tornadoes came to befocused in people’s minds. Moreover, the measuresagainst wind damage not only to buildings but also torailcars, agricultural facilities such as pipe houses, andtemporary facilities beside buildings under construction
have been raised as important subjects of wind disastermitigation.
The overturning of railcar due to a tornado associated with an approaching typhoon was described in theNobeoka tornado above. Since train services are controlled as a typhoon approaches, most overturns orderailments of railcars associated with strong winds
have been caused by unexpected gusty winds such as
tornadoes and gust fronts. The derailment accident of an
express railcar due to a gusty wind following passage ofa cold air mass from the Sea of Japan in Yamagata in
December 2005 was an example of this and caused
37 casualties (Kobayashi et al., 2006a).
It is extremely difficult to observe the gusty wind of
a tornado using ground-based observations. But, there isan example measurement which showed that gust windspeeds increased rapidly to a wind speed of 20 m/s in a
few seconds due to a frontal passage. This gusty windderailed a railcar just before its arrival at a station in
Fukuoka City. Figure 13 shows the wind speed record
observed 500 m windward from the accident site
(Takeuchi et al., 2008).
Mesh sheeting, which increases wind pressure force,is often stretched across temporary scaffolding surrounding a building under construction. Since a forecastof a gusty wind might be issued at short notice outsideof a typhoon season, there is often insufficient time todetach the sheeting and so crash accidents of scaffold
might happen more often as compared with a typhoonseason. A rough idea of the potential for crash accident
occurrences of scaffolds can be estimated from the number of days with wind speed of 20 m/s or more. The
frequency of these winds in Tokyo for each month isshown in Fig. 14 (Shimomura et al., 2006). The figure
indicates the average number of days when winds reachor exceed 20 m/s is larger during the winter and springthan in the typhoon season from July to September. The
outbreak of strong winds of about 20 m/s which appear
outside the typhoon season are easily missed; but,should not be overlooked.

Wind speed (m/s)

Fig. 11 Damage by tornado in Saga.

4. Other Wind Damage

40
30
20
10
0
19:11:00

19:12:00

19:13:00

19:14:00(time)

Fig. 12 Damage left by tornado in Saroma Town.

Fig. 13 Time evolution of wind speed at Imajuku, Fukuoka City.

Recent Extreme Wind Events and Damage Assessment in Japan50
The largest number of days
Average number of days
40
Occurrence ratio of annual peak gust speed
年最大瞬間風速出現率

最多日数

20
15

Tokyo

30

10

20

5

10

0

Occurrence ratio (%)

Number of days
when high speed wind occurred

25

0
1 2

3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

Observational month

Fig. 14 Number of days when high speed wind exceeding
20m/s occurred in Tokyo, Japan

Extreme wind events cause damage to farming areas
as well as urban areas. Other than the structures andvehicles noted above, the damage to power equipment
such as transmission towers and to agricultural equipment such as pipe houses in farming areas, etc. has often
been reported. In Japan serious damage to high voltage
transmission towers caused by typhoons was seen in the
1990s and since then countermeasures have been taken.
Since the beginning of the 2000s, serious damage to atransmission tower due to strong winds has not occurred.
On the other hand, although power transmission facilities have not experienced tornado damage, it is important to note that the probability that power grid facilities,
having a large scale with a line-like structure, willencounter a tornado is much higher than for usual structures.

5. Concluding Remarks
Despite periods of years when no typhoons havestruck Japan, is prone to typhoons with an average to
two typhoon strikes every year and economic losses
running into the billions of dollars. After a period of
30 years without a typhoon striking Japan Typhoon
Mireille in 1991, which was a typical windy typhoon,caused the worst economic loss up to that time. After
that, several years passed until Typhoon Bart struck in
1999, and then Japan was hit by 10 typhoons, which left
serious damage over the whole of Japan, in 2004
(Kobayashi, 2006b).
In the 2000s, the damage caused by tornadoes, which
has frequently occurred in urban areas, has not been
limited to structural damage and railcar accidents, etc.
Over the years many people have become victims ofextreme wind disasters. Over a number of years, Japan
has made significant progress in its preparedness against
a huge earthquake. Furthermore, the improvement of theearthquake resistant performance of structures has alsobrought about improvement in wind resistant performance of buildings and structures. Nevertheless, damage
to sheathing material and wind-borne debris are still
significant issues that require separate countermeasures.
The recent extreme wind-induced damage in Japan131

which began to show a new disaster aspect with changes
in urban form has made many people desire effective
measures of damage mitigation and more accurate forecasts of damage.

Acknowledgment
This report has been supported by many researchers
in wind engineering. The writer would like to express
his heartfelt thanks to Professor Yukio Tamura of Tokyo
Polytechnic University, Professor Fumiaki Kobayashi of
the National Defense Academy and Professor Eriko
Tomokiyo of Kyushu University.
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Junji MAEDA
Junji Maeda is a Professor in the Divisionof Architecture and Urban Design,
Kyushu University.
He is interested in wind engineeringin general and, as a specialty, has beenworking for many years on wind-resistantcountermeasures for transmission towers.
In connection with this work, he has
undertaken development of wind response measurement techniques for towers and wind data analysis
methods, while studying the structure of atmospheric turbulence understrong winds, fluctuating wind speed generation procedures and the effects
of terrain on local winds. The great damage to transmission towers caused
by Typhoon Mireille, which hit Japan in 1991, led him to construct a
wide-area network system for wind measurement that utilized power grids
in cooperation with a power company, which could collect high-resolution
wind data by ground-based observation over a wide area.
The wind data recorded by the system provides significant information for structural damage investigators as well as estimations for windsimulation based on typhoon models. Recently, he has reported
considerable results in the study of non-steady forces on bluff bodies
under short-rise-time gusty winds using a specially-equipped wind tunnel.
The results are expected to be useful in estimating wind loads caused bytornadoes, downbursts and other destructive wind events.

(Received 17 November 2009, Accepted 25 December 2009)