Typhoon Shanshan drenches Japan, prompting landslide and flood alerts

FUKUOKA/YUFU, Japan: Typhoon Shanshan soaked large swathes of Japan with torrential rain on Friday, prompting warnings for flooding and landslides hundreds of miles from the storm’s centre, halting travel services and shutting production at major factories.

At least four people have been killed and 99 injured in storm-related incidents in recent days, according to the disaster management agency.

In the southwestern region of Kyushu, where the storm that authorities say could be one of the strongest ever to hit the region made landfall on Thursday, residents were surveying the damage after a night of heavy rain and severe winds.

Yu Fukuda, 67, who runs a fish farm and adjoining restaurant in the resort town of Yufu in Oita prefecture said she arrived on Friday morning to find flood waters one-metre high had inundated the building.

“There were streaks on the windows and everywhere there were marks from mud and dirt, so I could tell how high the water had risen. I felt very sad,” she told Reuters as her staff and relatives cleared the debris of fishing nets and dead fish.

“I wish the typhoon had just passed quickly, but it stayed around here for a long time,” she said.

Bringing gusts of up to 50 metres per second, strong enough to blow over moving trucks, the typhoon was near the coastal city of Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture at 3:45 pm (2345 GMT) and moving east, according to authorities.