Japan sees travel chaos as Typhoon Lan makes landfall

TOKYO — A strong tropical storm lashed central and western Japan with heavy rain and high winds on Tuesday, causing flooding and power blackouts and paralyzing air and ground transportation while many people were traveling for a Buddhist holiday this week.

The storm weakened from Typhoon Lan early in the morning and made landfall near Cape Shionomisaki in the central prefecture of Wakayama, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, or JMA. It had sustained winds of up to 108 kilometers per hour as it headed northwest to cut across the region before veering east toward Hokkaido over waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

No casualties have been reported, but the storm has caused rivers to overflow, damaging some buildings and paralyzing traffic. In Maizuru in northern Kyoto, a flooded river sent muddy water flowing into some houses. In Nara, just south of Kyoto, scaffolding on one building collapsed. And a partial wall collapse at a train station in Tsuruhashi in Osaka halted local train services.

Local municipalities advised more than 180,000 residents in the region to take shelter in safer buildings such as community centers.

Up to 35 centimeters of rainfall was forecast in the Tokai region through Wednesday morning. The JMA urged residents in the area to avoid unessential outings and warned of potential mudslides.

More than 50,000 homes were without power in nine prefectures in the central and western regions, including Osaka, Wakayama, Mie and Kyoto.

The storm, hitting Japan in the middle of the Bon Buddhist holiday week, affected many Japanese who were traveling to visit their families and relatives, as transportation and event operators in the storm's predicted path have decided to suspend services through Tuesday.

Central Japan Railway said Shinkansen bullet train operations between Nagoya in central Japan and Okayama in western Japan were to be suspended on Tuesday, and service between Tokyo and Nagoya was reduced. Expressways in the region were also closed, and hundreds of domestic flights were canceled on Tuesday.

Games scheduled to be played on Tuesday in Japan's hugely popular annual high school baseball tournament, held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture, were postponed to Wednesday.

Agencies - Xinhua