TOKYO: A rapidly weakening typhoon Lan made landfall in Japan on Monday, setting off landslides and flooding that prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people, but then headed out to sea after largely sparing the capital, Tokyo.
Three people were reported killed, hundreds of plane flights cancelled, and train services disrupted in the wake of Lan, which had maintained intense strength until virtually the time it made landfall west of Tokyo in the early hours of Monday.
At least three people were killed, one a man in his 60s who was passing a building site when scaffolding collapsed on top of him and another a fisherman tending to his boat.
The third was killed when a landslide engulfed his home, media said. Two others were left comatose by injuries and one man was missing, NHK public television said.
Injuries
Nearly 90 others suffered minor injuries.
Rivers burst their banks in several parts of Japan and fishing boats were tossed up on land. A container ship was stranded after being swept onto a harbour wall but all 19 crew members escaped injury.
Some 80,000 people in Koriyama, a city 200 km (124 miles) north of Tokyo, were ordered to evacuate as a river neared the top of its banks, NHK said, and several hundred houses in western Japan were flooded.
“My grandchild lives over there. The house is fine, but the area is flooded, and they can’t get out,” one man told NHK.
Lan had weakened to a category 2 storm when it made landfall early on Monday, sideswiping Tokyo, after powering north for days as an intense category 4 storm, according to the Tropical Storm Risk monitoring site.
Earlier report
The typhoon roared towards Japan’s main island on election day on Sunday, prompting a warning for tens of thousands to evacuate and the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
Typhoon Lan, classified as an intense Category 4 storm by the Tropical Storm Risk monitoring site, was south of Japan and moving northeast at 50km/h on Sunday night, speeding up slightly, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
Lan appeared to have weakened slightly from its peak, but it was still a powerful storm that could pound parts of Japan with more than 80mm of rain an hour, an agency official told reporters.
It is set to make landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu, possibly near Tokyo, early on Monday, at which time it is likely to have weakened to a Category 2 storm.
The agency issued warnings for heavy rain and flooding on the Pacific side of Japan including the Tokyo metropolitan area, even though the typhoon is likely to be downgraded.
More than 70,000 households in various parts of Japan were advised to evacuate, with more than 5,000 ordered to do so, NHK public television said.
“I live alone and at night it’s scary, so I came here as early as I could,” one elderly woman told NHK at an evacuation centre in western Japan.
Wind gusts of up to 180km/h were possible across central and eastern Japan early on Monday, the JMA said, possibly hampering the morning rush hour even after the rain is expected to have largely dissipated.
Several landslides had occurred and rivers were rising close to the top of their banks. One part received more than 600mm of rain in 48 hours, twice the usual amount of rain for the whole month of October.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters he had called on the government to take steps to minimise any threats to life.
More than 300 flights were cancelled and rail services were interrupted across the country, in one case due to a power outage.
