CHIBA – Industry minister Isshu Sugawara said Thursday that the blackouts affecting parts of Chiba Prefecture due to Typhoon Faxai could last another week or longer, leaving residents and a local mayor feeling debilitated and frustrated.
Friday marked a fifth day without electricity in some parts of the prefecture after the strong typhoon made landfall near the city of Chiba early Monday, becoming one of the strongest recorded typhoons to ever hit the Kanto region.
To prevent a similar situation from happening again, experts say burying electrical power lines, a rarity in Japan due to the high costs involved, would be more effective.
Slow progress by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. in reconnecting lines has unnerved local residents, with Tepco’s efforts being hampered by large numbers of fallen trees in mountainous areas.
The utility had initially said Tuesday night that it would reduce the number of houses suffering power outages to 120,000 by the end of the day and that electricity would be fully restored Wednesday.
“An optimistic outlook will do no good to those affected,” Chiba Mayor Toshihito Kumagai said Thursday, voicing displeasure over Tepco’s initial projection.
“We want (Tepco) to assume the worst case scenario and share the information so all of those involved can prepare for it,” he said.
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As of 4 p.m. Friday, some 187,100 households were still without power, down from a peak of 935,000 on Monday and 280,000 late Thursday, according to Tepco officials.
Residents have been forced to live without air conditioning in late-summer heat, although temperatures have cooled over the last two days.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday morning, Kazuyuki Shiokawa, an engineer at subsidiary Tepco Power Grid Inc., said, “We regret that our initial prediction was too optimistic.”
The number of households without water stood at around 27,000 on Friday morning, according to the Chiba Prefectural Government, with some areas unable to pump up underground supplies due to the lack of electricity.
And in some areas where power and water had been restored, water supplies were lost again as people simultaneously turned on their taps, leading to a shortage and prompting the prefecture to call on residents to conserve supplies.
In the town of Tako, where some 4,000 households are still without running water, Self-Defense Forces personnel trucked in supplies in tankers.
And in the town of Kyonan, the typhoon smashed roof tiles and windows, and stripped entire roofs off some homes.
“The power outage is continuing and my home is a mess. I’ve never experienced something like this, and it is taxing,” said Kazuko Yamanoi, 55. “I want to take a warm bath and get a deep sleep soon,” she said.
Masakazu Kato, a professor at Tokyo Denki University specializing in electrical systems engineering, said resumption in just a few days is impossible given how long the recovery took from Typhoon Jebi in western Japan last year.
“As the (Tokyo) metropolitan area rarely experiences damage from typhoons, the lack of experience likely made the company take an approach that was too optimistic,” he said.
Following the March 2011 disaster at its Fukushima No. 1 plant, Tepco’s investments in power lines and other facilities fell to ¥209.7 billion in fiscal 2015, down from ¥298.4 billion in fiscal 2009.
After the enactment of a law to move power lines underground in 2016, the land ministry targeted the start of burying operations for a total of 1,400 km of power lines in the three years ending March 2021.
But complicating efforts to achieve that goal is the high cost: It will take more than ¥500 million per kilometer and in some places buried gas and water pipelines will need to be relocated.