Typhoon Hagibis 2019

Post Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: October 22, 2019, 5:00:00 AM

AIR Worldwide estimates that industry insured losses from Typhoon Hagibis, which made landfall in Japan on October 12, will be between JPY 865 billion (USD 8 billion) and JPY 1,730 billion (USD 16 billion), with more than half of the losses due to inland flooding.

ALERT™ subscribers can now download Touchstone^®, CATRADER^®, and Touchstone Re™ event sets and shapefiles for the observed precipitation-induced inland flooding extent and the median wind speed footprint for Typhoon Hagibis from the Downloads tab. To obtain a full view and understanding of the uncertainty in the loss range for this event, subscribers are encouraged to perform both detailed analyses in Touchstone and aggregate sums insured-based analyses in Touchstone Re or CATRADER for Typhoon Hagibis. 

AIR’s loss estimates explicitly capture residential, commercial, industrial, automobile, and agriculture/mutual losses from wind and storm surge, as well as from inland flood both on and off the floodplain based on a larger ensemble of simulated event scenarios that reflect uncertainty in precipitation observations, modeled flows, and levee failures. Please note that the level of rainfall and resultant flooding associated with Typhoon Hagibis is unprecedented, thus there is no analogous event in Japan’s recent history from which to draw insights on the cost associated with damage remediation and claiming behavior. Because of the intense rainfall within a short time period, much of the floodwater has a high mud content and includes a large amount of debris; this could potentially increase the costs of repair and cleanup and drive up business interruption losses—especially for commercial and industrial properties. In addition, Hagibis impacted some of the same region damaged by Typhoon Faxai a few weeks earlier. Additional damage caused by Hagibis to properties that were damaged by Faxai but were not repaired would further complicate claims settlements. 

Our loss estimates were derived based on AIR’s high-resolution Industry Exposure Database (IED) for Japan and the event’s hazard measures, including wind speed, surge inundation depths, and inland flood inundation depths, modeled using the event-based probabilistic AIR Typhoon Model for Japan. AIR’s loss estimates and wind and inland flooding extent footprints reflect all affected areas in Japan. Inland flooding losses represent the impact of rainfall from Hagibis from October 10 to 13 and include resulting on- and off-floodplain flooding therefrom.

The range in AIR’s loss estimates also reflects uncertainty in the payment of damage to buildings, damage to contents, extra expenses, debris removal, and estimated insured take-up rates. Please note that total economic losses are expected to be higher than industry insured loss estimates.

See below for additional information on what AIR’s loss estimates capture.

AIR’s modeled insured loss estimates include:

• Insured damage to property (residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural/mutual), structures and their contents, as well as extra expenses and debris removal, and automobile from wind, storm surge, and inland flood.

AIR’s modeled insured loss estimates do not include:

• Landslide
• Losses from tornado or earthquake
• Losses to land
• Losses to infrastructure
• Losses to CAR/EAR, marine hull, or marine cargo lines of business
• Business interruption losses
• Loss adjustment expenses
• Demand surge—the increase in costs of materials, services, and labor due to increased demand following a catastrophic event; demand surge can be applied by AIR software users who want to account for this variable

Typhoon Hagibis Recap

The storm system originated as a tropical disturbance to the north of the Marshall Islands and strengthened to a tropical depression on October 5. The storm continued to intensify to a typhoon a day later and then underwent rapid intensification, with the central pressure dropping 60 mb in less than 24 hours. The storm maintained its peak intensity for 96 hours while passing over the Mariana Islands with a central pressure of 915 mb and 1-minute sustained winds of 224 km/h (138 mph), the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane. On October 10, however, it encountered cooler sea surface temperatures and increased wind shear and began to weaken as it approached Japan.

Typhoon Hagibis nevertheless made landfall with 1-minute sustained wind speeds of about 145 km/h (90 mph), the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane, on the main Japanese island of Honshu at about 7:00 p.m. local time (10:00 UTC) on Saturday, October 12, near Shizuoka on the Izu Peninsula. The storm delivered high winds and record-breaking precipitation to a large portion of Honshu from Mie Prefecture in the west to Iwate in the north. Storm surge raised sea levels by more than 1 meter above mean sea level along parts of the coast.

Record Precipitation

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued its Level 5, or highest level, special warning for heavy rain; unprecedented rainfall followed. A wide swath of Honshu just outside the Tokyo metro area received between 250 mm and 500+ mm (10 and 20+ inches) of rain; the resort town of Hakone, where 939.5 mm (37 inches) of precipitation was recorded, broke the calendar-day rainfall record for all of Japan. Hakone’s rainfall represents the second-heaviest 24-hour rainfall ever recorded in Japan—25 inches (635 mm) of the 37 inches fell in just 12 hours. Many regions received between 30% and 40% of their yearly rainfall in just two days, with more than 100 stations breaking daily rainfall records at those locations. As a result of the large swath of unprecedented rainfall in Honshu, numerous rivers—the Abukuma, Arakawa, Chikuma, Kuji, Naka, Shinano, Tone, and Watarase rivers among them—experienced severe and devastating flooding. Of the ~540 river gauging stations on Honshu island, more than 85 exceeded their 100-year return period peak flows, with more than 100 exceeding their historical records. In addition, shortly before Hagibis made landfall, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the region—parts of which were in the early stages of recovery from Typhoon Faxai, which struck just one month prior. A tornado was also reported in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, on October 12.

Reported Damage and Disruption

Much of central and eastern Japan experienced severe flooding and landslides; power outages and travel disruption were widespread. Dozens of people have been killed, and others are injured or missing. Widespread evacuations ahead of landfall prevented the death toll from being much higher.

As of October 20, 2019, 135 levees have been reported breached, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), affecting 78 rivers. Water inundated the cities of Ueda and Nagano, where 10 Hokuriku Shinkansen line bullet trains—one third of the total—were damaged in a flooded railway yard. A railway bridge collapsed into the Chikuma River and many railway lines and roads across the region were submerged or blocked. According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA), more than 56,000 buildings in Japan have been impacted, as of October 20, 2019.

On October 12 most rail services were suspended for at least a week, and 1,600 flights were canceled. On the next day, 200,000 homes were still without power; many households lacked fresh water. Two games in the Rugby World Cup were canceled, the Suzuka Grand Prix was disrupted, and for the first time the Disneyland and DisneySea theme parks in Tokyo closed for the day. 

Post Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: October 22, 2019, 5:00:00 AM

Simulated Event Set

Note: The "All simulated scenarios" set consists of all the events simulated by AIR using the event's actual parameters. The "Select simulated scenarios" set consists of a subset of the full distribution that is most representative of the range of potential industry losses.

Product	Version	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE Re	2019 and CT 21	Selected Set Of Simulated Scenarios	​
TOUCHSTONE	6.2 and 7.0	Selected set of simulated scenarios	​

Similar Stochastic Event IDs

Note: These lists give event IDs taken from our stochastic catalog that have similar characteristics as the current event.

Product	File Type	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE	xls	Loss-Based SSEs	​
TOUCHSTONE Re	xls	Loss-Based SSEs	​

Additional Downloads

Note: Additional downloads related to the posting are listed below. Please use the appropriate application to view these files.

Title	File Type	Description	Download
Typhoon Hagibis Flood Modeling Methodolgy	.pdf	Document containing a description of the methodology AIR used to model inland flooding from Typhoon Hagibis and to create the flood inundation and depth bin shapefile.	​
Typhoon Hagibis Wind Footprint	.shp	Shapefile showing the median modeled wind speed footprint for Typhoon Hagibis, along with instructions for importing the shapefile into Touchstone.	​
Typhoon Hagibis Inland Flood Inundation Footprint	.shp	Shapefile showing Typhoon Hagibis inland flood inundation and depth bins, along with instructions for importing the shapefile into Touchstone.	​