TOKYO: At least 11 people were killed and 15 were missing after the most powerful typhoon hit Japan in decades paralysing Tokyo, officials said on Sunday.
Some died in landslides and others were swept away by floodwater in their cars as rivers broke their banks after torrential rain.
More than 100 people were injured as many areas were hit by record amounts of rainfall and violent winds, public broadcaster NHK reported. Officials urged residents to be on alert with evacuation orders remaining for about 5.9 million people across 17 prefectures, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
Typhoon Hagibis had moved away from the island by Sunday morning. It was located off the Sanriku coast as of 8.45am local time (7.45am Singapore time), according to the meteorological agency.
More than 420,000 buildings across the country have lost electricity due to the typhoon, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement.
Rugby World Cup organisers cancelled a Sunday match between Namibia and Canada in Kamaishi amid safety concerns following torrential rains that caused flooding and landslides around the venue in northern Japan. Games between the United States and Tonga, and Wales and Uruguay will still take place, according to a statement on the tournament’s official website.
Organisers early Sunday were still considering whether to hold a closely watched contest between Japan and Scotland.
Meanwhile, Japan has cancelled a maritime fleet review planned for Monday, a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defence Force said.
Last held four years ago, the review was due to include 46 naval vessels and 40 aircraft. Ships from Australia, India, the United States, Canada, Singapore and Britain were scheduled to join.
By Sunday morning, the significantly weakened storm had moved back off land, but serious flooding was reported in central Japan’s Nagano, where a burst levee sent water from the Chikuma river gushing into residential neighbourhoods, flooding homes up to the second floor.
Moving to higher ground - waves and surge hammering the little fishing harbour I’m in (don’t try this at home - I had an escape route behind me) Ebisu island #japan #typhoon #Hagibis pic.twitter.com/kv87zNp8xy
— James Reynolds (@EarthUncutTV) October 12, 2019
Japan’s military deployed helicopters to rescue people seen standing on balconies waving towels to attract attention.
“Overnight, we issued evacuation orders to 427 households, 1,417 individuals,” emergency official Yasuhiro Yamaguchi in Nagano city, told AFP, adding that it was unclear how many homes had been affected.
Aerial footage showed a row of bullet trains half-submerged in muddy waters at a depot in Nagano.
The storm also brought travel chaos during a long holiday weekend in Japan, with flights grounded and both local and bullet trains serving Tokyo suspended fully or partially. But on Sunday morning, train services were resuming and operations were slowly restarting at the two airports serving the capital, although many flights remained cancelled.
Before dawn on Sunday, authorities lifted rain and flood warnings for the Kanto region around a becalmed Tokyo but imposed them on areas further north after Typhoon Hagibis blasted through the capital.
Attention focused on Fukushima, where Tokyo Electric Power Co overnight reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Three people died in Chiba, Gunma and Kanagawa prefectures surrounding Tokyo, while a man in his 60s was found with no vital signs in a flooded apartment in Kawasaki, public broadcaster NHK said. Seventeen were missing early Sunday, it said.
A 50-year-old man was killed near Tokyo early on Saturday in a car overturned by punishing winds, while another person died after being washed away in a car, public broadcaster NHK said. Nine people remain missing in landslides and flooding, it said.
The storm, which the government said could be the strongest to hit Tokyo since 1958, brought record-breaking rainfall in many areas, including the popular resort town of Hakone, which was hit with 939.5mm of rain over 24 hours.
Hagibis, which means "speed" in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan's main island of Honshu on Saturday evening. A magnitude 5.7 earthquake shook Tokyo shortly after.
Major shinkansen bullet trains from Tokyo would begin on schedule Sunday, NHK said.
Even as the typhoon moved away from the capital late on Saturday, one expert warned of further flooding as several surrounding prefectures began releasing water from dams, letting it flow downstream.
"The situation is now worse than this evening," Nobuyuki Tsuchiya, director of the Japan Riverfront Research Center, told Reuters. About 1.5 million people in Tokyo live below sea level.
Just last month, another strong storm, Typhoon Faxai, destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses in Chiba, east of Tokyo, and caused extensive power outages.
The capital's main airports, Haneda and Narita, stopped flights from landing and connecting trains were suspended, forcing the cancellation of more than a thousand flights.
Train operators suspended bullet train services extensively, while many train and subway lines in Tokyo were also down for most of Saturday. Usually bustling entertainment and shopping districts such as Shibuya and Ginza were deserted.