Typhoon Ma-on, packing winds of up to 162 kilometres (100 miles), slammed into the central Japan prefecture of Shizuoka around 4:00 pm (0700 GMT) and was on course to hit the capital, the Meteorological Agency warned.

A 74-year-old newspaper deliveryman went missing in the town of Onjuku in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, local police said.

"He is feared to have been washed away in a swollen river," a police official said, adding his motorbike had been found turning over on its side near the river.

A gust of 243.4 kilometres (151 miles) per hour was recorded at a Shizuoka cape of Irozaki, some 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Tokyo.

More than 3,800 households in central and eastern Japan were ordered or recommended to evacuate, public network Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) said.

"Shinkansen" bullet trains ground to a halt in central and eastern Japan, affecting tens of thousands of passengers. Train station officials with loudspeakers were seen urging holidaymakers to cancel their schedules.

Express roads were partially closed while nearly 200 domestic and international flights were cancelled.

Downpours also disrupted practice runs for Sunday's Formula One Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, on Japan's central Pacific coast.

Race organisers rescheduled Saturday's qualifying sessions for Sunday.

The typhoon is the strongest storm to hit the eastern Japan region centering on Tokyo in 10 years in terms of its atmospheric pressure reading, according to the agency.

Ma-on, a Cantonese word meaning horse saddle, was south of Shizuoka Saturday afternoon, moving northeast at 60 kilometres (37 miles).

The typhoon may bring about downpours of 50-80 millimetres (two-3.2 inches) per hour in the eastern and northern Japan regions on the Pacific coast, the agency said.

Television footage showed flooded houses in central Japan with residents rescued by boat. In Tokyo, port officials were checking water gates while a plastic cover was put on the huge paper-made lantern set in the outer gate of the landmark Sensoji temple.

Another typhoon, Meari, wreaked havoc over the Japanese islands last week.

It has left 22 dead, six missing presumed dead, and 89 injured in floods, landslides and other storm-triggered accidents before fizzling out in the northern Pacific, according to the latest count by the National Police Agency.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.