Super typhoon forces US and Japanese commanders to trim Keen Sword drills in Japan's southwest

Super Typhoon Champi, the strongest storm to form anywhere this year, is forcing US and Japanese commanders to scale back or cancel parts of Keen Sword, the large bilateral exercise that began on Monday 19 October and is due to run until 29 October. On Wednesday 21 October the storm was moving toward Japan's southwestern islands, where many of the planned drills take place.

Joint Typhoon Warning Center figures cited by Stars and Stripes put the typhoon about 600 miles southeast of Kadena Air Base at noon local time on Wednesday, heading west-northwest with sustained winds near 178 miles per hour and gusts of up to 218 mph. It passed roughly 10 miles south of Guam on Sunday, knocking out power across the island; by Wednesday electricity had been restored to 99 percent of the grid.

A Keen Sword spokesman, Maj. Ephesian Poinsette, said by email that exercise commanders are reviewing activities every day as they follow the storm's track, and that schedule changes are being handled as conditions develop to balance safety against training goals. He said some training events had been modified because of forecasts and safety assessments, but that the exercise's core objectives would still be met.

Japan's Joint Staff gave a narrower account. A spokesman told the newspaper by phone that the typhoon had caused no major disruption to the overall schedule, although one unspecified training activity on Okinawa had been cancelled. He added that more cancellations were possible if the storm struck training areas directly.

The weather has also scrapped at least two Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force port calls, according to local government spokespeople. The destroyer JS Setogiri will no longer visit Ishigaki Island, and the utility landing craft JS Nihonbare has called off a planned stop at Yonaguni.

On Tanegashima, an island south of Kyushu in Kagoshima prefecture, training will go on at a smaller scale, the US spokesman said, and the prefectural government has announced changes to the activity there. Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported that a single US military Osprey tiltrotor landed at Tanegashima airport on Wednesday and that the size of the US contingent training on the island had been reduced.

Other parts of the exercise carried on. A French Navy Falcon maritime patrol aircraft landed at US Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi prefecture at about 05:00 TRT on Wednesday, or 11 a.m. in Japan, KRY Yamaguchi Broadcasting reported. Citing Japan's defence ministry, the station said the Falcon will take part in intelligence-gathering training at sea, with a detachment of about 20 personnel based at Iwakuni from 21 to 23 October. Iwakuni city told the station that this is the first time a French military aircraft has come to the base for combined training.

KRY added that Iwakuni will also host Maritime Self-Defense Force OP-3C multipurpose aircraft for joint electromagnetic operations training, Ospreys from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma stopping for fuel and maintenance, and a drill in which a navy air-cushion landing craft comes ashore at the base's port area to move vehicles and personnel onto a transport ship.

This year's Keen Sword involves about 56,000 US and Japanese personnel together with forces from seven partner nations, all training for the defence of Japan. The planned programme includes the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and US Marine Corps air-defence and anti-ship missile units, many of them assigned to the island chain that now lies in the storm's projected path.