Japan Typhoon Jebi: Six people killed and more than 160 injured as storm barrels into land

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Patrick Grafton-Green5 September 2018

Six people have been killed and more than 160 injured as Japan was battered by the strongest typhoon to hit the country in 25 years.

Typhoon Jebi barrelled into western parts of Japan on Tuesday, resulting in more than a million people being told to evacuate their homes and hundreds of flights being cancelled.

Wind speeds reportedly reached up to 129mph (208km/h) as waves pounded the coastline and cars overturned.

NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, said at least six people had died and 163 had been injured.

As the typhoon made landfall at about midday local time, a 71-year-old man was found dead under a collapsed warehouse in Shiga prefecture, east of the tourist city of Kyoto.

Video posted on Twitter showed a small part of the roof of Kyoto train station falling to the ground.

Around 100mm of rain drenched one part of the city in an hour, with as much as 500mm set to fall in some areas in the 24 hours to midday on Wednesday.

Flooding covered one runway at Kansai airport near Osaka, forcing the airport to close and leaving about 3,000 tourists stranded.

Kansai International Airport partially is flooded by typhoon Jebi in Osaka
AP

The strong winds and high tides sent a 2,591-tonne tanker crashing into a bridge connecting the airport, built on a man-made island in a bay, to the mainland.

The bridge was damaged and closed, but the tanker was empty and none of its crew were injured, the coastguard said.

Nearly 800 flights were cancelled, while scores of ferries and trains were also unable to run.

By 5pm local time, some 1.6 million households were left without power in Osaka and its surrounding areas.

The storm made landfall on Shikoku, the smallest main island. It raked across the western part of the largest main island, Honshu, near the city of Kobe, several hours later, before heading into the Sea of Japan in the evening.

Evacuation advisories were issued for more than a million people at one point, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

The capital, Tokyo, escaped the centre of the storm but was set for heavy rains and high winds.

The arrival of Jebi, which was briefly a super typhoon, comes after rains, landslides, floods and record-breaking heat that killed hundreds of people in Japan this summer.

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