Typhoon Goni slammed into the Japanese mainland Tuesday, leaving at least one person missing, more than 70 others injured and disrupting rail and flight services, as authorities urged more than 600,000 people to leave homes.
The powerful storm, which killed at least 26 people in landslides and floods in the Philippines, hit the south-western Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu island at about 6:00 am (2100 GMT Monday), Japan’s weather agency said.
Most of those injured sustained minor cuts from broken glass, a prefectural official told a foreign news agency. TV footage showed trees ripped from their roots by violent winds and streets strewn with seaweed and fish dumped ashore by huge waves.
In the major city of Fukuoka, a man in his 60s suffered a serious head injury after he was hit by a flying steel pipe, authorities said.
In Kumamoto, a man delivering newspapers was missing and believed buried by a landslide, a Jiji Press report said. Packing gusts up to 180 kilometres (112 miles) per hour, Goni passed over Kyushu, one of Japan’s four main islands, and continued its path over the Sea of Japan (EastSea), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Local governments in northern Kyushu and some prefectures on the main island of Honshu issued evacuation advisories for more than 600,000 people, the disaster management agency reported.
