Two dead as typhoon bears down on southern Japan

Updated at 3.56pm

TOKYO: Two people died and another was missing in torrential rain in southwestern Japan on Saturday as a powerful typhoon approached the country's main islands.   

Typhoon Shanshan was 120 km northwest of the tiny island of Miyakojima, roughly 1,900 km southwest of Tokyo as of 1 p.m. (0400 GMT).   

The storm was moving north-northeast at 20 km per hour, bringing with it winds gusting up to 180 km an hour, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.   

A 41-year-old man and his 17-year-old daughter died after being swept away by a swollen river when the car they were travelling in was caught up in a landslide in Saga Prefecture on the southernmost main island of Kyushu, police said.   

A 19-year-old man is missing in a separate flooding incident in Saga.   

The eye of the storm, classified as a category 4 typhoon by UK-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), might make landfall on Kyushu late on Sunday, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.   

The agency warned of high winds and waves up to 11 metres around the southwestern isles on Saturday. Up to 250 mm of rain was expected on Okinawa and gusts up to 250 km per hour were measured on the island of Iriomote, an agency official said.   

Television showed fallen trees and fences on Miyakojima and people struggling to walk on the streets of Okinawa.   

Six people had been reported injured and about 20,000 households in the region were without electricity due to the storm, NHK said.   

Dozens of flights in and out of Okinawa were cancelled, NHK said.