At least two people have been confirmed dead and millions of Japanese warned to evacuate as powerful Typhoon Hagibis bears down on Tokyo.
Three people are reported missing and some 70 others are injured, Japanese media report, as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike urged residents to “protect your life” as an “unprecedented typhoon” was coming to the capital”.
One person was found dead in an overturned vehicle in the city of Ichihara, east of Tokyo, and eight others were injured when a tornado touched down in the area early on Saturday, destroying 12 houses and causing damage to 89 others, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing local officials.
One person died and two people were unaccounted for in the city of Tomioka, about 120 kilometres north-west of Tokyo, after a landslide hit four houses, broadcaster NHK reported. Six residents were rescued, the report said.
In the central city of Gotemba, one person was missing after he was swept away in a drain, Kyodo said.
More than seven million people were ordered to evacuate their homes in eastern and central Japan, including 910,000 in the city of Kawasaki, as the storm brought heavy rains and powerful winds, inundating residential areas in the regions.
The typhoon comes as Japan hosts the Rugby World Cup, with the England-France and New Zealand-Italy matches already cancelled.
Tournament organisers said they are evaluating whether additional matches on Sunday would need to be called off.
Meteorologists issued an emergency rain warning to a total of 12 prefectures, including Tokyo and Shizuoka, as they warned of mudslides, flooding and swollen rivers.
At a news conference, Yasushi Kajihara, who heads the forecast division at the Meteorological Agency, warned of “rainfall of the kind that you have never experienced before” in those prefectures.
Since Thursday, Hakone Town, west of Tokyo, had received more than 900 millimetres of rain and the city of Izu more than 700mm, Kyodo reported.
About 278,000 households lost electricity in the Kanto region and Shizuoka prefecture, according to Tokyo Electric Power.
The storm caused more than 1660 flights to be cancelled, according to NHK, while many train services, including high-speed bullet train services, were halted, operators said.
In Tokyo, major departments stores, many restaurants and supermarkets were closed due to the anticipated impact of Hagibis.
As of late Saturday night, Hagibis was travelling north-northeast at 40km/h with maximum sustained winds of 144km/h and gusts of 198km/h, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The eye of Hagibis was around the city of Kawasaki after the typhoon made landfall in the Izu Peninsula shortly before 7pm.
The storm is expected to dump 400mm of rain in the Hokuriku region, 300mm in northeast Japan and 250mm in the regions of Kanto and Koshin by Sunday evening.
Hagibis is comparable to the 1958 typhoon that hit eastern and central Japan, killing more than 1200 people, the agency said.
-with AAP
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