TOKYO — Typhoon Fitow left two people dead, one person missing and more than 50 injured while disrupting transportation services as it made landfall near Tokyo early Friday and swept northward through the Kanto and Tohoku areas on Japan's main island of Honshu.
The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of strong wind and rainfall in areas along the typhoon's anticipated course as it is expected to move further north to make landfall again on Hokkaido on Saturday morning.
In Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, Tsuneo Yanagisawa, 76, died after being hit by a tree around 11 p.m. Thursday, police said. He was clearing trees felled by strong winds from the typhoon, they said.
A construction worker died and another sustained injuries to the right leg after being trapped in a landslide which hit a dam construction site in Ono, Fukui Prefecture, firefighters said.
Many rivers in Tokyo and its vicinity swelled to near flood levels. From banks along the Tama River on the Tokyo-Kanagawa border, 29 people, mainly homeless persons living there, were stranded and rescued Friday.
Near the river, a 52-year-old company employee in Kawasaki also went missing after he left home Thursday night, police said. As he told his wife he was going out to take a look at the swollen river, the police are searching for him suspecting he could have been washed away.
Authorities temporarily urged some 20,000 households to evacuate for fear of possible flooding in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Similar evacuation advice was issued Friday in areas including Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, and Gunma and Yamagata prefectures.
In Tokyo Bay off Yokohama, two cargo ships collided after dragging their anchors around 2 a.m. Friday, the Japan Coast Guard said. But none of 36 crew members on the 15,888-ton African Oryx registered in the Bahamas or the 1,995-ton Tian Dao registered in China was hurt.
At 1 p.m. Friday, the typhoon was moving north at 45 kilometers per hour near Shinjo City in Yamagata Prefecture, northeastern Japan, whipping up winds of up to 144 kph near its center with an atmospheric pressure of 985 hectopascals, according to the agency.
Power blackouts have occurred at more than 100,000 households in eight prefectures since Thursday morning, with nearly 300,000 households still out of power Friday morning, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tohoku Electric Power Co said.
At least 53 people were injured in nine prefectures affected by the typhoon, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
East Japan Railway Co and other railway operators suspended many morning commuter trains including expresses and subway trains in the metropolitan area affecting some 220,000 people.
Some bullet trains on the Tokaido, Nagano, Tohoku-Akita and Yamagata Shinkansen lines were also suspended.
But the Joetsu Shinkansen trains and Narita Express trains between the metropolitan area and Narita airport, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, ran normally, the operators said.
At Narita airport near Tokyo, eight international flights and one domestic flight were canceled Friday morning due to strong winds, according to Narita International Airport Corp officials.
Elsewhere, a total of 225 domestic flights, mainly those arriving at and leaving Tokyo's Haneda airport and Miyagi Prefecture's Sendai airport, were canceled Friday morning.
Winds clocking 160.9 kph were logged at Cape Irozaki in Shizuoka Prefecture on Friday while the wind velocity reached 137.9 kph in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture, the agency said.
In the 24-hour period to noon Saturday, up to 300 millimeters of rainfall is likely in areas on the Pacific in the northeastern Japanese region of Tohoku, up to 250 mm in areas on the Pacific side of the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, the agency said.
In Yugashima, Shizuoka Prefecture, rainfall exceeded 620 mm in a 24-hour period, topping the area's average rainfall for the month of September which stands at 354.7 mm.
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