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Coronavirus infections in Japan surpass 15,200

May 05, 2020 (NHK) - Japan reported 176 new coronavirus cases and 20 deaths on Monday.

The country's total number of cases is now 15,253. The tally includes people tested at airport quarantine stations, health ministry officials, quarantine officers and individuals who returned to Japan from China on government-chartered planes. It also includes infections among the crew of the Costa Atlantica cruise ship docked in Nagasaki, western Japan.

The addition of 712 cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined in Yokohama in February, brings the total to 15,965.

The death toll in Japan has risen to 569, including 13 from the Diamond Princess.

By prefecture, Tokyo has 4,654 infections, followed by Osaka with 1,679, Kanagawa with 1,107, Saitama with 903, Hokkaido with 879, Chiba with 857, Hyogo with 668, and Fukuoka with 648.

Health ministry officials say 312 people were in serious condition as of Monday, including four from the Diamond Princess. A total of 5,147 people have recovered and had left hospital, as of Monday.

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Typhoon No. 15 continued moving west across central Japan on August 12, but heavy rain, strong winds and thunderstorms remained a threat far from the storm's center, with intense rainfall reported in parts of Tokyo and damage including fallen and broken trees in Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures.

Hiroko Saito was 19 years old when she left Japan for North Korea in June 1961 with her Korean husband and their one-year-old daughter, persuaded by assurances that they were heading to a "paradise on earth" and that she could return to Japan after three years. Instead, she would spend four decades in North Korea, enduring chronic hunger, the deaths of her husband and children and a desperate struggle to survive before finally escaping and returning home in 2001.

Transport disruption caused by Typhoon No. 15 was easing across eastern Japan on the morning of August 12, with most major railway and airline services returning to normal after dozens of flight cancellations and widespread rail disruption during the storm's landfall in Ibaraki Prefecture the previous evening.

Japan's H3 Rocket No. 9 successfully placed the Michibiki No. 7 navigation satellite into its planned orbit after lifting off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture at 4:23 a.m. on August 11, marking the country's second consecutive successful H3 launch.

The Tokaido Shinkansen operated its first overnight service ahead of the Obon holiday period, offering travelers a 15,000 yen trip from the Tokyo area to Kyoto and Shin-Osaka while allowing them to save on hotel costs and arrive earlier than the first regular morning trains.

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