Typhoon Ma-on hit the Tokyo metropolitan area Saturday afternoon, after slamming into the central Japan prefecture of Shizuoka, the Meteorological Agency said.

It brought about rainfall of 69 millimetres (2.8 inches) for one hour to 6:00 pm (0900 GMT) in central Tokyo, the agency said.

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

Violent winds and torrential rain caused a blackout for some 180,000 households as of 6:45 pm (0945 GMT) in eastern Japan, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

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) at an accelerated speed of 65 kilometres (40 miles) per hour.

Ma-on, a Cantonese word meaning horse saddle, slightly weakened as it passed near the metropolitan area, packing winds of up to 108 kilometresmiles) late Saturday.

Television footage showed roofs of Tokyo subway stations leaking badly and cars splashing water as they churned in flooded roads.

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.

Another man at sewer work in Tokyo also was missing after gushed away by flush water.

A 60-year-old man went missing in the city of Omaezaki, Shizuoka prefecture, while he was removing flotsam from a stopped-up branch of a neighbourhood river, police said.

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, Saturday afternoon.

The typhoon flooded more than 300 houses and caused 100 landslides, the National Police Agency said.

Several people were injured but none was in a critical condition.

About 6,200 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.

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, according to the latest count by the National Police Agency.