Typhoon Ma-on leaves Japan, leaves four dead, five missing

TERRA.WIRE

Typhoon Ma-on leaves Japan, leaves four dead, five missing
TOKYO (AFP) Oct 10, 2004
The most powerful typhoon to hit eastern Japan in a decade fizzled out on Sunday after causing a trail of destruction which left four people dead and five others missing, police and weather officials said.

Typhoon Ma-on slammed into the Tokyo metropolitan area on Saturday, causing floods and mudslides while paralyzing transport systems in the Japanese capital and surrounding areas.

By 9am Sunday (0000 GMT), Ma-on was downgraded to a temperate depression, the Meteorological Agency said.

The storm passed near Narita City, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Tokyo, and moved to the Pacific ocean at around 8:00 pm (1100 GMT) Saturday.

A 55-year-old man died after a mudslide hit his house in Kamakura City, southwest of Tokyo, local police said.

In Minamiizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, also southwest of Tokyo, a 72-year-old man died after strong winds broke a wooden power poll and fell on him, according to police.

In Izu, Shizuoka, a 80-year-old man died after being rescued from his house, which was destroyed by a mudslide.

A 55-year-old employee of a fish farm in Kamo village in Shizuoka fell to a river near the farm, and his body was found in the river late Saturday, local police said.

Express roads were partially closed while more than 400 domestic and international flights were cancelled Saturday.

"Shinkansen" bullet trains ground to a halt in central and eastern Japan, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

Ma-on, a Cantonese word meaning horse saddle, was 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 meteorological agency.

The season's 22nd typhoon in the Pacific region was a record ninth to score a direct hit on Japan in the past.

It hit Japan just a week after another typhoon, Meari, wreaked havoc over the Japanese islands.

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.

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.