Two dead as powerful typhoon batters Japan

A powerful typhoon has slammed into Japan’s south, bringing gales and torrential rain and forcing more than half a million people to take shelter.

Typhoon Neoguri was generating gusts of 250km/h when it hit the island chain of Okinawa last night, killing two people.

The storm shut down airports and public transport and cut off power to more than 100,000 households. Thousands of children were sent home from school on Okinawa’s main island, home to 1.2 million people.

Japan’s meteorological agency issued a “special warning” yesterday, indicating a high possibility of “a grave natural disaster”. Local media said the typhoon was a once-in-a-decade event. Agency officials say the slow-moving typhoon could hit Kyushu this morning, then track towards the densely populated main island of Honshu, weakening as it moves.

The agency had downgraded the storm from a “super typhoon” and lifted some of its high-wave warnings by last night. But it warned that torrential rain could last until Friday, triggering floods and landslides in areas already inundated during the summer rainy season.

The storm, almost 250km wide, according to weather satellite imagery shown on Japanese television, was still rated “very strong” and is expected to bring heavy rain to Tokyo later this week.

Deaths of fishermen

State broadcaster NHK says at least 25 people have suffered mostly minor injuries. Two fishermen died as high waves lashed the coast, according to NHK.

“The wind was so strong I could barely stand up,” one woman told the broadcaster. “People in older houses have been told to evacuate to stronger shelters.”

Another woman said the storm “wasn’t as bad as we expected”. “The wind rattled houses and scared the children but we have seen worse here.”

Okinawa, about 1,600km from Tokyo, is home to dozens of US bases and 50,000 US soldiers and their families. The US sent some of its aircraft to shelter in South Korea and Guam.

Japan is hit by several storms every summer and autumn. Typhoon Wipha, which struck the mainland in October last year, left dozens of people dead or missing.

Television pictures last night showed the streets of Naha city, Okinawa’s prefectural capital, almost deserted as people hunkered indoors until the storm passed. The eye of the typhoon passed about 185km west of Naha, according to the meteorological agency. The city reported its strongest gusts of 180km/h yesterday.

The storm comes eight months after Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones on record, flattened swathes of the Philippines, killing at least 6,000 people.

Prone to landslides

Japan has strict building codes and storm defences, including a nationwide alert system broadcast on millions of televisions. But much of the countryside is prone to landslides.

Most of the victims of Typhoon Wipha were killed in a single landslide that buried a remote mountainside village.

Weather officials said villages in the path of Typhoon Neoguri should be on the “highest alert” over the next 48 hours.