Today we returned from a trip to the Kokai and Kinu river. The news when we returned was that Tsukuba had been struck by a tornado. It actually struck the Hojo area North of Tsukuba, where we visited with professor Takeuchi earlier last month. It also caused a power outage, but we have full power here, so it's almost as if nothing happened. The Tsukuba city website is displaying which bus to take to evacuation centers in case you were living in the Hojo area. Over 400 houses are destroyed and 30 people are injured, some severely, and one boy has died. Tornadoes are rare, it is said.
The pictures we took today show stormy skies. Having a holiday, many people were out on the river with jet skis or fishing equipment. At the Fukuoka weir, we nearly were blown off the weir into the water. This was about the time the tornado struck. We stopped at several water in- and outlets going North along the Kokai river. We ended up at the butterfly shaped insect museum, which also features fish and a gallery with pictures and images made from flower petals. At the Aeon shopping mall we saw an agricultural rice planting machine. The next day I heard there was a tornado in Tsuchiura last year, just 10 km South of Tsukuba. It doesn't sound quite so rare.
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