Typhoon Shanshan, which is slowly moving towards Japan on Friday, has dumped torrential rains, killing five people, authorities and local media said.
The typhoon, one of the most powerful in decades to hit the archipelago, has weakened but is still packing winds of over 126 km/h as it slowly makes its way across the country of 125 million people.
Even before the typhoon made landfall, a landslide triggered by heavy rains killed three members of a family Tuesday night in Aichi Prefecture on the country’s central Pacific coast.
And according to media reports, two other people have died, including a man last seen on a small boat on the southern island of Kyushu and another whose two-story house partially collapsed on the neighboring main island of Shikoku.
At least 81 other people were injured, many by flying glass after the typhoon shattered windows and ripped tiles from roofs as it hit Kyushu on Thursday with gusts of up to 252 kph.
Authorities have issued a maximum alert for flooding, wave submersion and landslides in several regions, with more than five million people urged to evacuate.
The city of Ninomiya, southwest of Tokyo, urged residents to take “immediate measures” to ensure their safety, such as moving to higher floors of their homes after a local river flooded.
Parts of the southern island of Kyushu saw record rainfall for August, with the city of Misato recording 791 mm of water in 48 hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Power outages have affected more than 250,000 homes in total in Kyushu, but the utility operator said only 6,500 were still without electricity on Friday as engineers repaired damaged transmission lines.
Overnight, many highways were completely or partially closed in several regions, Japanese media reported.
Shinkansen bullet trains remained suspended in Kyushu and were also halted on the main Tokyo-Osaka route, with operators warning of disruptions elsewhere.
Japan Airlines and ANA had already announced the cancellation of more than 600 flights on Friday, after cutting a similar number the day before, affecting nearly 50,000 passengers.
Factories at a standstill
Auto giant Toyota has been forced to suspend production at all 14 of its plants in Japan. Rivals Nissan and Honda have halted operations at their Kyushu plants, as have chipmakers including Tokyo Electron, according to media reports.
Kyushu is a major semiconductor production location: Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC opened a factory there in February.
Shanshan hit Japan after Typhoon Ampil in mid-August, which brought heavy rains and disrupted hundreds of train journeys in Japan without causing significant damage.
Typhoons in the region are forming closer to shore than before, intensifying more quickly and staying over land longer because of climate change, according to a study published in July.
Another study released Thursday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) showed that climate change accelerated Typhoon Gaemi, which killed dozens of people in the Philippines, Taiwan and China earlier this year.