Powerful Typhoon Vongfong yesterday hit Japan, injuring at least 20 people as it pounded the southern Okinawan islands with ferocious winds and driving rain.
The monster storm was about 110km southeast of Naha City in Japan’s southernmost area of Okinawa at 8am GMT yesterday, according to the nation’s meteorological agency.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center has downgraded the storm from a super typhoon, but officials said it remained “large and very strong” and warned of gusts, high waves, torrential rain and landslides.
Packing gusts of up to 234kph, the typhoon was moving north very slowly, at 15kph.
Vongfong is expected to reach near Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu by early tomorrow after brushing off Okinawa, and could make landfall, the meteorological agency said.
Okinawa has already been experiencing gusts and heavy rain, which caused a blackout in 33,000 households.
At least 20 people have been injured in the prefecture, including a man who lost a finger after it was caught in a door slammed shut by strong winds, a municipal official said.
Public broadcaster NHK said several more had been injured, including a nine-year-old girl who also caught a finger in the door.
Satellite images of Vongfong showed a perfectly formed eye in the middle of a gigantic swirling disc of cloud.
The typhoon came just a week after another strong tropical storm whipped through the country, leaving 11 people dead or missing in the nation prone to natural disasters.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake yesterday shook northern Japan two weeks after a volcano in the central part of the archipelago erupted without warning, killing at least 55 hikers.
In August, rainfall in western Japan’s Hiroshima triggered landslides, killing more than 70 people.
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