Typhoon Nangka wreaks havoc in Japan

July 17, 2015 07:39 am | Updated 10:05 am IST - TOKYO

Waves crash against Katsurahama in Kochi on the island of Shikoku, as Typhoon Nangka sweept across western Japan on Thursday.

Waves crash against Katsurahama in Kochi on the island of Shikoku, as Typhoon Nangka sweept across western Japan on Thursday.

Typhoon Nangka barrelled across the western end of Japan's largest main island on Friday, snarling transport, leaving at least two men dead and prompting authorities to advise nearly 100,000 people to evacuate.

Rivers burst their banks in the western prefecture of Wakayama after some parts of Honshu, Japan's largest main island, received more than 600 mm of rain since the storm began to near on Thursday.

Two men drowned, one of them a 71-year-old man, who fell into a flooded ditch while repairing a window, NHK said. Some 35 people were injured.

Nangka had been downgraded to a tropical storm by Friday morning but still packed sustained winds of 80 kph, with gusts of up to 120 kph an hour.

Flights cancelled

Authorities advised nearly 100,000 people to evacuate across a wide swathe of western Japan due to the threat of flooding and landslides. At one point on Thursday, nearly 400,000 people were advised to leave their homes.

Some 165 flights were cancelled, trains in western Japan suffered delays and highways near the ocean were closed.

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