Typhoon lashes Japan, spurring evacuations

Bloomberg

A powerful typhoon made landfall southwest of Tokyo on Saturday evening, bringing heavy rains and violent winds, knocking out power to thousands of homes and prompting local authorities to instruct more than a million people to evacuate.
Tokyo and nine surrounding prefectures have ordered around 1.1 million people to leave their homes as Typhoon Hagibis threatens flooding and landslides, NHK reported. In Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, winds blew roofs off some homes, injuring residents, while a man found unconscious in an overturned vehicle died after being taken to hospital, according to the broadcaster.
Hagibis made landfall in Izu Peninsula around 7 pm local time, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The storm is expected to move northwest toward Tokyo later in the evening.
One person has been killed and four missing due to the typhoon, NHK said.
Some 16,720 buildings across the country, mostly in the Pacific coastal area, have lost electricity due to the storm, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.
The typhoon has caused more than 1,000 flight cancellations, disrupted train services and forced the closure of factories and shops. Shelves were cleared out at some stores as people scrambled for bottled water and instant noodles.
The typhoon was packing winds of up to 216 kilometres per hour as of 6 pm local time, according to an advisory from the the meteorological agency.
The meteorological agency issued the highest level of warning for rain and urged residents in Tokyo and 11 other prefectures —Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Yamanashi, Nagano, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Fukushima, Niigata and Miyagi — to take the “best actions to preserve life.”
Hakone in Kanagawa prefecture, a town known for hot springs, has seen a record 635 millimetres (25 inches) of rain over the past 24 hours, nearly twice the monthly average for October, according to the NHK.