Typhoon Ma-on leaves Japan, leaves six dead, three missing

TERRA.WIRE

Typhoon Ma-on leaves Japan, leaves six dead, three 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 six people dead and three 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 9:00 am 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.

Emergency workers found the body of a missing 37-year-old woman at a coast of Shizuoka city in Shizuoka prefecture, local police said.

Meanwhile, in Ohara town in Chiba Prefecture, 75 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Tokyo, police found the body of a 74-year-old newspaper deliveryman at a river in Ohara, local police said.

The man went missing Saturday in the nearby town of Onjuku after he left for morning paper delivery.

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 weakening in the northern Pacific.