Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Summer is the time of traditional festivals in Japan but they often coincide with summer typhoons and the weather can severely disrupt local events. The seventh typhoon of this year is threatening Japan and one of Japan’s largest festivals.

The Tomioka Hachimangu Festival is one of the three biggest festivals in Tokyo and is scheduled for August 13 to 15 when typhoon 7 is due to hit central and eastern Japan.

The festival features around 50 portable shrines that are carried over a distance of 8 kilometers by locals in and around the shrine in the Koto district of Tokyo. Those carrying the shrines are usually sprayed with water by firefighters, priests and others for purification.

With the typhoon arriving and covering a large area, this year’s procession was also drenched by heavy showers.

Other major festivals are under a greater threat from the typhoon as they lie directly within the typhoon’s path. These include Kyoto’s Gozan Okuribi Festival and Tokushima’s Awa Odori Festival, the most famous dance festival in Japan.