A powerful typhoon pounded Japan's southern main island of Kyushu with heavy rains and strong winds yesterday, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes and knocking out power to over a million households.
Across the country 75 people were injured, Kyodo News reported, while 22 crew members of an Indonesian cargo ship were missing.
PHOTO: AFP
Police and coast guard were also investigating reports that a Russian-registered freighter had sunk in western Hiroshima prefecture and its 19 crew were missing, said a prefectural police spokesman.
Packing winds of up to 144kph, Typhoon Songda plowed into the city of Nagasaki, about 980km southwest of Tokyo, before it roared across western Honshu, dumping heavy rains and unleashing fierce winds in its path.
The coast guard was searching for the 22-member crew of the Tri Ardhianto, a 6,300-tonne Indonesian cargo ship after the vessel ran aground and was flooded, said spokesman Koichiro Maeda.
"We of course are most concerned about the fate of the crew, but the bad weather is hampering our search," said a spokesman for the 6th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters.
A rescue team had so far only located one empty lifeboat in the area, but could not determine if it was from the Tri Ardhianto, he added. The entire crew was Indonesian.
Songda was the record seventh typhoon to hit Japan this year -- exceeding the six storms that lashed the country in 1990, the Meteorological Agency said.
Television footage showed tree branches snapping due to fierce gales and people struggling to stand up straight as they attempted to walk across the street against the wind. Gusts demolished six homes across the country, while 21 were flooded, the National Police Agency said. Across southern Japan, about 20,000 people sought emergency shelter, Kyodo News reported.
Authorities warned residents to be on alert for landslides, since the typhoon was arriving just two days after magnitude 6.9 and 7.4 earthquakes shook the western part of the country, injuring 43 people.
Aftershocks from Sunday's tremors continued in western Japan as the typhoon approached, with a 6.4-magnitude jolt striking on Tuesday morning. No injuries or damage were reported from the latest aftershock.
The Meteorological Agency warned that up to 40cm of rain could fall on parts of Kyushu and the island of Shikoku over the next 24 hours.
NHK reported 432 flights were canceled across southern Japan, while the main rail operator in Kyushu halted all train service.
In Kyushu and the island of Honshu, a total of 1.35 million households were left without power, the local electric utilities said.
A sixth-century shrine registered as a World Heritage site was another victim.
Strong winds toppled an elevated wooden structure at Itsukushima Shrine, famous for a red gate that sits in the sea at high tide, said Terumi Nishimura, a spokeswoman for the Hiroshima tourism association. Gusts also damaged the roof of a five-story pagoda at the shrine.
Oil refiners Cosmo Oil and Kyushu Oil suspended shipments, but that was not expected to dent domestic supply because Japan's oil companies typically build up stocks for such emergencies.
Still, the storm may inflict lasting damage on refineries in the country's west. Last week, Japan Energy Corp was forced to shut its Mizushima refinery after flooding from Typhoon Chaba.
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