Powerful Typhoon Crosses Japan's Main Island, Killing 4

Tokyo, Oct. 1 (Jiji Press)--Powerful Typhoon Trami crossed Japan's Honshu main island from Sunday night to Monday morning, leaving four people dead. The 24th typhoon of the year turned into an extratropical cyclone at a point off the southeastern coast of Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, around noon Monday (3 a.m. GMT). After making landfall near the city of Tanabe in the western prefecture of Wakayama in Honshu around 8 p.m. Sunday, the typhoon swept through the main island also including the Kanto eastern region and the Tohoku northeastern region. According to police and other sources, a landslide occurred in the town of Kotoura in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, killing a 50-year-old man inside a minivehicle. A man, believed to be in his 40s, was found drowned in the city of Fujiyoshida in the central prefecture of Yamanashi around 2 a.m. Monday. One of the two remaining victims, a 46-year-old man, was confirmed dead in the western prefecture of Shiga and the other, a 79-year-old man, in neighboring Kyoto Prefecture. In Miyazaki Prefecture, part of the Kyushu southwestern main island, a woman, 67, is unaccounted for after falling into an irrigation channel. According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, 14 people had been seriously injured and 90 slightly injured as of 7 a.m. Monday. Evacuation orders had been in place for some 183,400 people and evacuation recommendations for some 705,500 as of 6 a.m. A maximum instantaneous wind speed of 45.6 meters per second was recorded shortly past 12:10 a.m. Monday in Tokyo's Hachioji. Aoi Ward in the central city of Shizuoka had rainfall of 72.5 millimeters during the hour until just after midnight Sunday. The extratropical cyclone was traveling northeast over waters southeast of Hokkaido at a speed of 95 kilometers per hour as of noon Monday. It had a central atmospheric pressure of 970 hectopascals, packing winds of up to 35 meters per second. East Japan Railway Co. <9020>, or JR East, and other railway operators suspended train services in the Tokyo metropolitan area from Sunday evening due to the approach of the typhoon. The train operations were resumed gradually from Monday morning. According to JR East, however, the service disruption affected about 350,000 people in the area covered by its Tokyo branch office. All Nippon AIrways, a unit of ANA Holdings Inc. <9202>, and Japan Airlines <9201> canceled 125 and 94 flights scheduled for Monday, respectively, affecting a total of some 28,000 people. END