Deadly Typhoon Hits Japan After Striking Philippines

A typhoon that wreaked havoc and death in the Philippines slammed into Japan today, losing power but maintaining enough force to cause landslides and flooding that killed at least one person and injured two others.

Television footage showed residents of Mito, northeast of Tokyo, trudging knee-deep through torrents of muddy water.

At least 13 homes were flooded in the Tokyo area, while dozens others were inundated throughout eastern Japan.

An 81-year-old man drowned after plunging into a flooded canal, and two people were injured when they were knocked down by the winds, officials said.

National broadcaster NHK said Typhoon Kirogi had weakened to 56 mph. As it approached Japan on Friday, the typhoon was packing winds of 80 mph.

Several domestic flights were canceled, and some bullet train services were suspended, NHK said.

In the early hours today, the storm lashed the Izu island chain south of Tokyo before heading northeast to skirt the Pacific coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu.

The festival hall of a shrine and three homes were demolished by landslides overnight on the island of Kozushima, where 788 people had been evacuated to higher ground, local official Chizuru Ishida said.

In the Philippines, floods and rain from typhoons in the region drove 400,000 people from their homes, officials said Friday. At least 16 people were dead and 10 missing.

Schools and municipal buildings were inundated by the homeless, who are likely to need shelter for up to a week, said James Sian, manager of national disaster relief in the Philippines.

“It isn’t farfetched to say that our supplies will run out,” he said.

The other storm off the Philippines, Typhoon Kai-tak, was about 375 miles southeast of Hong Kong on Friday night and expected to remain nearly stationary overnight, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

Meanwhile, a tropical storm in the South China Sea was upgraded to a typhoon and headed for China.