A very powerful typhoon is heading towards the Japanese island of Kyushu with winds of up to 70 meters per second.
Hundreds of thousands of people are under evacuation order.
Typhoon Shanshan is about twelve miles off Yakushima Island and is bringing winds of up to 70 meters per second on its way to Kyushu Island in southern Japan. Kyushu is home to 12.5 million people.
– Typhoon Shanshan is expected to approach southern Kyushu with very strong force on Thursday and may make landfall, government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi says.
– Strong winds, high waves and storm surges are expected at levels that many people have never experienced before.
The storm has already brought heavy rains to large parts of Japan. Late Tuesday, a house housing five people was swept away in a landslide in the town of Gamagori in Aichihi Prefecture. Three people are missing.
In southern Kyushu, 500 mm of rain is expected in the next 24 hours, then 600 mm in the next 24 hours, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Emergency services said 810,000 people had been asked to evacuate in the Shizuoka region due to the rain, as well as 56,000 others in the city of Kagoshima on Kyushu island.
More than 200 domestic flights and six international flights were cancelled on Wednesday.
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