Typhoon Tokage, which also injured at least 31 people, became a record 10th typhoon to land on the main Japanese islands in a year. The storms have claimed at least 104 lives.

Nearly 500 domestic flights were cancelled Wednesday, affecting some 44,000 passengers, and tens of thousands lost electricity as the typhoon raced northeast up the archipelago.

With an 800-kilometer (500-mile) radius of powerful winds, Tokage is the biggest typhoon to land in Japan since the Meteorological Agency began its classification system in 1991.

A 31-year-old man was found dead near a flooded river in Miyazaki prefecture in southern Japan after his vehicle skidded at a bridge, police said.

In southwestern Ehime prefecture, a 24-year-old woman died after being buried by a landslide. Also in Ehime, two elderly men and a woman went missing after separate landslides destroyed their houses.

Other people who went missing included a 75-year-old fishermen pulled into the ocean as he inspected his boat in Kochi, a 63-year-old farmer swept away in a ricefield in Miyazaki and a newspaper deliveryman who disappeared in Oita prefecture.

In Chiba prefecture just east of Tokyo, two workers who were building an embankment along a coastline were pulled into the Pacific by high waves, a government official said.

Tokage, which means lizard in Japanese, struck the Pacific coast at around 1:00 pm (0400 GMT) at Tosashimizu in Kochi prefecture, 700 kilometersmiles) southwest of Tokyo.

Packing wind speeds of 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, it triggered landslides and sent objects flying.

Among the injured were four people trapped in an office building which was crushed in Oita, a 68-year-old man in Saga Prefecture who fell from his roof while fixing it and an 83-year-old woman who fell and broke her thigh.

Typhoon Tokage was moving northeast at 50 kilometers (30 miles) an hour and was expected to bring strong winds, heavy rain and high waves through Thursday.

Authorities have issued evacuation warnings to 17,434 people who live mainly in southern Japan. By Wednesday afternoon, 4,250 people had voluntarily left for temporary shelters, the disaster agency said.

In the southern island of Kyushu 45,300 households lost power, while 29,713 customers lost electricity in neighboring Shikoku.

A 9,900-ton cargo ship was grounded on an island off the coast of Ehime in southwestern Japan but all 12 crew members were unharmed.

The nine previous typhoons that have hit Japan this year caused a total of 102 deaths and left 13 missing and presumed dead.

Typhoon Ma-on slammed into the Tokyo metropolitan area on October 9, killing six people and paralyzing the capital's transport systems.

Just a week before Ma-on, Typhoon Meari wreaked havoc in the Japanese islands, killing 22 and injuring 89 in floods, landslides and other accidents.

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