Typhoon Nanmadol has killed two people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate as ferocious winds and record rainfall battered parts of Japan.
As one of the biggest storms to hit the country in years, the typhoon disrupted transport and forced a myriad of people to spend the night at gymnasiums and other facilities in a precautionary evacuation.
Residential streets were flooded with muddy water from rivers, and swathes of homes lost power after Japan’s 14th typhoon of the season made landfall near Kagoshima city late on Sunday.
It then battered the western island of Kyushu and roared into the main island of Honshu.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delayed his departure to New York, where he is due to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly, until Tuesday to monitor the impact of the storm, media reported.
“We need to remain highly vigilant for heavy rains, gales, high waves and storm surges,” a Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) official told a news conference.
A river in Kyushu’s Miyazaki prefecture overflowed, flooding fields and roads, footage from state broadcaster NHK showed.
Other video showed a riverside house hanging over a torrent, roofs ripped off buildings and billboards toppled.
The storm was centred off the coast north of Shimane prefecture in western Honshu as of 4:00pm local time and was heading north-east at about 35 kph, the JMA said.
The storm would track the coast to the north of Honshu into Tuesday before moving out over the Pacific, the agency projected.
Up to 400 millimetres of rain was expected in central Japan’s Tokai region, the nation’s industrial heartland, over the next 24 hours, it said.
Toyota Motor Corporation was among manufacturers that said they would idle production at some factories due to the storm, but there were no reports of major damage to industry.
Intermittent bouts of heavy rain lashed Tokyo, but businesses in the capital were largely operating as normal.
Most schools were closed on Monday anyway for a public holiday.
Source: ABC News