Millions evacuated as typhoon slams southwest Japan, halting flights and factories

Millions of people were told to evacuate their homes as Typhoon Shanshan battered southwestern Japan on Thursday with strong winds and heavy rain, knocking out electricity, snarling air traffic and forcing major factories to close.

At least three people have so far been killed and dozens injured in what authorities have warned could be one of the strongest storms ever to hit the region.

Major carmaker Toyota suspended operations at all of its domestic factories because of the storm, while Nissan, Honda and chipmakers Renesas and Tokyo Electron temporarily halted production at some plants.

Funeral home worker Tomoki Maeda was in a hearse when the typhoon hit the southern Kyushu city of Miyazaki, shattering windows and tearing down the walls of buildings.

“I have never experienced such a strong wind or tornado in my 31 years of life,” Maeda told Reuters.

The typhoon, with gusts of up to 50 meters per second (180 km per hour/112 mph), was near the city of Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture at 1:45 p.m. (0445 GMT), moving north about 15 km per hour, according to the data. the weather agency.

About 230,000 households in seven prefectures were without power in the afternoon, according to Kyushu Electric Power Co. The utility previously said there was no impact on its Sendai nuclear power plant in the city of Satsumasendai, where the storm made landfall earlier on Thursday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference that three people had died and one was missing in typhoon-related incidents, while the disaster management agency said 45 were injured.

After hovering over Kyushu for the next few days, the storm is expected to approach central and eastern regions, including the capital Tokyo, around the weekend, the weather agency said.

More than 5.2 million people have received evacuation notices across the country, authorities said.

Madoka Kubo, who runs a hotel in the historic town of Hitoyoshi in Kumamoto Prefecture, told Reuters that all reservations had been canceled and that her hotel was now being used to house elderly people who had been evacuated from nearby areas.

Airlines, including ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines, have already announced the cancellation of nearly 800 flights. Rail services were suspended in many areas of Kyushu, while hundreds of bus and ferry services were also halted, according to the transport ministry.

Typhoon Shanshan is the latest severe weather system to hit Japan, following Typhoon Ampil, which also caused power outages and evacuations, earlier this month.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama, Sam Nussey, Yuka Obayashi, Maki Shiraki, Rocky Swift, Kantaro Komiya, Mahezabin Syed and John Geddie; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Photo: Large waves hit a coastal area in Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, western Japan, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, as a typhoon approaches. (Hidetaka Komukai/Kyodo News via AP)

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Catastrophe Natural Disasters Aviation Japan