A powerful typhoon smashed into Japan yesterday and headed toward the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where workers raced to secure buildings to stop radioactive material spreading.
Typhoon Roke, packing winds of up to 216kph, made landfall near Hamamatsu at about 2pm and was moving northeast across the major island of Honshu.
The storm has already killed at least four people and more than a million were initially warned to leave their homes over fears that torrential rains could cause widespread flooding.
Hundreds of flights were canceled, ferry and rail services were suspended and roads closed as the country prepared for the impact of the storm.
Roke comes just six months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami laid waste to a vast area of Japan’s Pacific coast, sparking nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima.
It also comes less than a month after a vicious typhoon barreled through Japan, killing 100 people in the deadliest storm the country has seen in more than three decades.
Four people have so far been found dead in central and western Japan, while two people are missing in Gifu Prefecture, including a boy who disappeared on his way home from elementary school.
Many of the initial evacuation advisories were dropped by lunchtime yesterday, but remained in force for around 330,000 people nationwide.
Auto giant Toyota said it was temporarily shutting 11 of its 15 Japanese plants, which lie in the path of the storm.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had temporarily closed five of its aviation and engine plants in central Japan due to the storm, a company spokesman said.
By the time it hit the coastline yesterday, Roke was moving at around 45kph. Winds near its center were estimated at up to 162kph, with gusts much stronger.
“The rain and wind is raging out there and people on the street were staggering,” Yoshinori Ito, a spokesman with Hamamatsu City, said by telephone.
The storm was expected to travel northeast, in the direction of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
“We have taken every possible measure against the typhoon” at Fukushima Dai-ichi, said Naoki Tsunoda, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the stricken plant.
“We have tied down cables and hoses while fixing equipment so that radioactive materials will not spread [in violent winds],” he said, adding operations on the ground and at sea had been suspended.
He said workers had also fixed tarpaulin over spots in buildings where rain could enter.
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