Typhoon Nanmadol brought fierce winds and record rainfall to western Japan on Monday as one of the biggest storms to hit the country in years killed at least one person, disrupted transportation and strained some manufacturers to suspend their operations.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delayed his departure for New York, where he is due to deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, until Tuesday to monitor the impact of the storm, local media reported.
“We need to stay very alert for heavy rain, gale force winds, high waves and storm surge,” a Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) official told a news conference.
The 14th Japanese typhoon of the season made landfall near the city of Kagoshima on Sunday evening before hitting the western island of Kyushu and then roaring over the main island of Honshu on Monday morning.
A river in Kyushu’s Miyazaki prefecture overflowed, flooding fields and roads, footage from state broadcaster NHK showed. Another video showed a house on the edge of a river half-suspended over a torrent, the tin roof ripped off a gas station and a toppled billboard leaning over a street in the top of a building.
NHK said a man was found dead inside his car, which was found submerged on its roof in the middle of a field.
Another man was found unconscious in an area affected by landslides.
At least 82 people were injured, NHK said.
Around 340,000 households, most of them in Kyushu, were without power as of early Monday, the Commerce Ministry said, while Kyushu Railway Co, said it halted operations in Kyushu and Japan Airline Co Ltd and ANA Holdings canceled around 800 flights, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The storm was centered off the northern coast of Shimane prefecture in western Honshu at 0700 GMT and was tracking northeast at around 35 km/h (22 mph), the JMA said.
The storm would track the coast north of Honshu until Tuesday before crossing overland and moving northeast into the Pacific, the agency predicted.
Up to 400 mm (15.75 inches) of rain was expected in the Tokai region of central Japan, the country’s industrial heartland, over the next 24 hours, it said.
Toyota Motor Corp was among manufacturers that said they would halt production at some plants due to the storm, but no major damage was reported across the industry.
Intermittent bouts of heavy rain hit Tokyo, but businesses in the capital were largely operating normally.
Most schools were closed on Monday for a public holiday anyway.
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