Japan selects symbol meaning 'disaster' to define 2018

Japan has chosen the symbol meaning "disaster" to define the year 2018 after floods, earthquakes and typhoons hit the country.

The announcement was broadcast live as Seihan Mori, master of the ancient Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto, wrote the kanji character on a white panel.

The symbol was chosen in a public vote, in which 21,000 out of 193,000 picked it to define the year.

A kanji symbol for peace came second.

"North" won the vote in 2017 after North Korea's missile launches, and "gold" in 2016 after the Rio Olympics.

Chinese characters, or kanji, are used widely in Japanese as well as other alphabets.

In July, 200 people died in floods and more than eight million were evacuated from their homes after the worst weather in decades.

It was the highest death toll caused by rain in the country since 1982.

Just days later, 65 people died in a heatwave that hospitalised more than 20,000 people, more than half of whom were elderly.

The city of Kumagaya hit 41C – the highest ever recorded in Japan.

The country was also hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 and was rocked by its strongest typhoon for 25 years.

The damage caused by these natural disasters shrank the country’s GDP by 1.2 per cent over the last three months.