3,000-year-old cedar knocked over by powerful typhoon in Japan

Tokyo, Sep 4 (IANS) A massive 3,000-year-old cedar on Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan has been toppled, apparently due to strong winds brought by Typhoon Shanshan, local media reported.

At its full height, the cedar stood about 26 metres high with a circumference stretching 8 meters around its trunk. Local tour guides found it collapsed on Saturday, broken near its base, Xinhua news agency reported quoting Kyodo News.

Yakushima Island, known for its more than 1,000-year-old “Yakusugi” cedars, was designated as a World Natural Heritage site in 1993.

Typhoon Shanshan, also referred to as Typhoon No. 10, approached the island from August 27 to 29, with wind speeds of up to 168.48 kilometres per hour, according to the local weather observatory.

The powerful typhoon had left seven people dead and more than 120 injured, with over 1,000 homes damaged due to gusts of wind and flooding, as it churned off the Pacific coast of central Japan, local media reported.

–IANS

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