According to the South Korea Meteorological Agency, super typhoon Hinnamnor is set to make landfall on September 6 and may cause multiple casualties. The Kori nuclear power plant, which is in the incoming path of the Category 5 storm near the industrial city of Ulsan, has reduced the operating rates of three of its nuclear reactors to less than 30 percent in preparation for the typhoon, according to EnergyVoice. “We are now entering a phase where we have to minimize losses,” Han Sang-un, head of the Korea Meteorological Agency, said during a Sept. 5 briefing. “It is a huge typhoon with a radius of 400 kilometers (248.5 miles), which is large enough to cover Seoul to Busan. Most areas in Korea will experience heavy rain and wind,” he said. A photo of Hinnamnor taken on September 1, 2022 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The storm passes over Taiwan (top left) and heads northeast toward the Korean Peninsula. NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin Typhoon Sarah, which hit South Korea in 1959, and Typhoon Maemi, which hit in 2003, are believed to be two of the most powerful storms in the nation’s history. Hinnamnor is predicted to be potentially more powerful. As of Sept. 5, the storm has sustained winds of 127 miles per hour (mph) with gusts of about 155 mph, according to the U.S. Joint Hurricane Warning Center. “Super hurricanes are defined as a hurricane in the NW Pacific basin with 1-minute sustained winds of at least 130 kts (150 mph), equivalent to a Category 4 or Category 5 wind on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Dr Adam Lea, senior research fellow in hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones for the Department of Space and Climate Physics at University College London, told Newsweek. “The total diameter of the storm can be hundreds of kilometers, but the very destructive winds are confined to a much smaller area around the eye called the eyewall, which is a ring of storms surrounding the eye where the most extreme conditions occur. This the area usually extends to 100 km [around 60 miles] from the eye. Hinnamnor is one of the largest hurricanes with hurricane-force winds extending up to approximately 140 km [around 85 miles] from the centre”. The Kori nuclear plant, which is in the path of the storm, could therefore be at risk if the hurricane hits it full force. Natural disasters of this kind are historically very bad news for power plants: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was severely damaged by a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in 2011, causing about 150,000 people to evacuate their communities near the site of the disaster. According to Lea, a super typhoon hitting land at maximum intensity would cause extreme to catastrophic damage to most buildings not built to withstand such winds. However, Cyclone Hinnamnor has weakened significantly since its peak. “I don’t know about nuclear power plants, but the buildings are very solidly built and will withstand the winds comfortably,” he said. “Prior to Typhoon Maemi in 2003, five nuclear power plants shut down automatically and were ultimately unaffected.” The South Korea Meteorological Administration predicts the typhoon will hit the resort town of Jeju at around 1am. local time on September 6, and southern coastal cities including Ulsan and Busan around 7 a.m. Bloomberg, 200 residents in the coastal areas of Busan were told to evacuate to shelters on September 5.
