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Japan Urges 200,000 People to Evacuate Due to Heavy Rain

Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. (AFP)
Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. (AFP)
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Japan Urges 200,000 People to Evacuate Due to Heavy Rain

Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. (AFP)
Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. (AFP)

Nearly 200,000 people in western Japan were urged to evacuate on Saturday as authorities warned of landslides and floods, while the remnants of a tropical storm trickle over the country.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said "warm, moist air... was causing heavy rainfall with thunderstorms in western Japan" partly due to Kong-rey, which was downgraded to an extratropical low-pressure system from a typhoon.

The city of Matsuyama "issued the top-level warning, urging 189,552 residents in its 10 districts to evacuate and immediately secure safety", a city official told AFP.

While the evacuation was not mandatory, Japan's highest-level warning is typically issued when it is extremely likely that some kind of disaster has already occurred.

Forecasters warned that landslides and floods could affect western Japan on Saturday and eastern Japan on Sunday.

Due to rain, Shinkansen bullet trains were briefly suspended between Tokyo and southern Fukuoka region in the morning before resuming on a delayed schedule.

Kong-rey smashed into Taiwan on Thursday as one of the biggest storms to hit the island in decades.

It claimed at least three lives and injured 690 people, according to the National Fire Agency, which added a migrant worker death to the toll on Saturday.

The storm knocked out power to 957,061 households, 27,781 of which were still in the dark as of Saturday.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

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Varieties

Scientists Rebuild Face of 400-year-old Polish 'Vampire'

A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
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Scientists Rebuild Face of 400-year-old Polish 'Vampire'

A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS

Buried with a padlock on her foot and an iron sickle across her neck, "Zosia" was never supposed to be able to come back from the dead.
Entombed in an unmarked cemetery in Pien, northern Poland, the young woman was one of dozens feared by her neighbors to have been a "vampire".
Now, using DNA, 3D printing and modelling clay, a team of scientists has reconstructed Zosia's 400-year-old face, revealing the human story buried by supernatural beliefs, Reuters reported.
"It's really ironic, in a way," said Swedish archaeologist Oscar Nilsson. "These people burying her, they did everything they could in order to prevent her from coming back from the dead... we have done everything we can in order to bring her back to life."
Zosia, as she was named by locals, was found in 2022 by a team of archaeologists from Torun's Nicolaus Copernicus University.
Aged 18-20 when she died, analysis of Zosia's skull suggests she suffered from a health condition which would have caused fainting and severe headaches, as well as possible mental health issues, Nilsson said.
The sickle, the padlock and certain types of wood found at the grave site were all believed at the time to hold magical properties protecting against vampires, according to the Nicolaus Copernicus team.
Zosia's was Grave No. 75 at the unmarked cemetery in Pien, outside the northern city of Bydgoszcz. Among the other bodies found at the site was a "vampire" child, buried face down and similarly padlocked at the foot.
Little is known of Zosia's life, but Nilsson and the Pien team say items she was buried with point to her being from a wealthy — possibly noble — family.
The 17th century Europe she lived in was ravaged by war, something Nilsson suggests created a climate of fear in which belief in supernatural monsters was commonplace.
Nilsson's recreation began with creating a 3D printed replica of the skull, before gradually building layers of plasticine clay "muscle by muscle" to form a life-like face.
He uses bone structure combined with information on gender, age, ethnicity and approximate weight to estimate the depth of facial features.
"It's emotional to watch a face coming back from the dead, especially when you know the story about this young girl," Nilsson says.
Nilsson said he wanted to bring Zosia back "as a human, and not as this monster that she is buried as".