Typhoon kills three, causes chaos in Tokyo

920,000 homes lose power; hundreds of thousands of commuters affected

One of the strongest typhoons in recent years swept through Tokyo on Monday, leaving at least three people dead, dozens injured and nearly 1 million people without power.

Typhoon Faxai (a woman's name in the Lao language), the season's 15th of its kind, made landfall in Chiba prefecture, just east of Tokyo shortly before 5 am, bringing heavy rain and winds as fast as 207 kilometers per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

A woman in her 50s in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward was confirmed dead after a security camera captured her being blown into a wall by a strong gust of wind.

Another woman in her 20s was seriously injured after a tall fence surrounding a golf driving range collapsed and fell to the ground.

Faxai also resulted in injuries of at least 40 other people in Chiba, Ibaraki, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures, local authorities confirmed.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said a blackout had left nearly 920,000 households without power at one point while the East Japan Railway Co suspended all lines in the greater Tokyo area when the typhoon affected hundreds of thousands of rush-hour commuters at the start of the week.

The train services gradually resumed midmorning, but all the lines are experiencing serious delays.

More than 130 flights to and from airports in the Tokyo area were canceled on Monday. Some parts of the Keikyu rail line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama to Haneda Airport were still suspended as of 3 pm.

Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that he had received a damage report of the typhoon and called for a calm response to the aftermath.

"There had been a major disruption to railway operations due to fallen trees and flying objects, and more than 900,000 households experienced blackouts as of 10 am on Monday," Suga said.

"The government is working hard to understand the damage situation and is making every possible effort to deal with the disaster. Please be alert to the latest information from the national and local governments and respond to it calmly," he added.

"I couldn't fall asleep yesterday because of the strong wind noise, so I got up only to find that my ceiling was leaking water and my floor was flooded by the heavy rain." said Li Jialing, a student of Waseda University in Tokyo who lived on the third floor of a four-story building near the university.

Makoto Terayama, a researcher at Nomura Securities, told China Daily that he waited for more than one hour for the subway to open on Monday morning.

"I went to the subway station and found it was closed. So I waited there for more than one hour until my boss told me that I could go home," Terayama said.

By Monday noon, the skies of Tokyo had cleared, bringing humidity and unexpected temperatures that reached 37 C.

Kyodo News contributed to this story.