Typhoon Shanshan makes landfall in Japan as three dead – latest update

More than 250,000 households across seven prefectures were left without power as the typhoon battered the region, according to Kyushu Electric Power Company.

Train services were also suspended in many parts of Kyushu.

Airlines, including ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines, have already announced cancellations of more than 600 domestic flights.

Typhoon Shanshan is the latest harsh weather system to hit Japan, following Typhoon Ampil, which also led to blackouts and evacuations, earlier this month.

Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in southwestern Japan this morning, claiming at least three lives and leaving one person missing as it unleashed powerful winds, torrential rains, and triggered landslides.

Two people also sustained severe injuries, and five others suffered minor injuries due to the storm.

The storm, which hit near Satsumasendai city on Kyushu island, brought gusts of up to 198km/h (123mph).

A quarter of a million people were left without power as footage from public broadcaster NHK showed walls brought down and windows broken in Miyazaki city in southern Kyushu.

Authorities have described Shanshan as potentially one of the strongest typhoons to ever strike the region. Factories were closed and hundreds of flights were cancelled ahead of its arrival.

Typhoon Shanshan had maximum sustained winds of between 95 and 100 mph in its eyewall – the destructive ring of thunderstorms surrounding the eye of the storm – on Thursday morning local time, the Washington Post reported, citing the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

The typhoon was probably producing a storm surge of around 2 metres between Makurazaki and Ibusuki in southern Kyushu, the outlet reported.

South of Kyushu, on the island of Amami, where the typhoon passed on Wednesday, one person was knocked down by a wind gust while riding a motorcycle, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

Following some warnings that the typhoon could bring tornadoes, there were unconfirmed social media reports of at least one tornado emerging in southern Kyushu.

As the typhoon approached the southern coast of Kyushu, storm chaser James Reynolds described a “complete whiteout at times” in Makurazaki, as the eyewall of the typhoon brought fierce winds, sheets of rain and infrequent lightning, leaving its harbour a “churning cauldron”.

In further X posts on Thursday morning local time, Mr Reynolds described widespread power outages and blocked roads as he shared footage of trees uprooted and rivers gushing with rainwater.

Fellow storm chaser Jonathan Petramala, also shared footage of the swirling blankets of rain in Makurazaka, writing: “This vortex in the inner eye wall … reminds me of the Dementors in HarryPotter”.

After returning to his hotel, Mr Petramala wrote: “The eye wall is still grinding over us … The whole building is shaking.”

Typhoon Shanshan appeared to make landfall near Makurazaki on the southern island of Kyushu on Thursday morning local time.

Wind gusts reached speeds of 85mph while some parts of southern Kyushu had received over 380mm of rain by Thursday morning, despite the typoon having weakened from the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday to a Category 2 storm, the Washington Post reported.

Meteorologists are struggling to chart the expected path of Typhoon Shanshan, which has been moving particularly slowly and whose route is dependent on a number of other weather systems at play in the region.

James Reynolds, who chases and documents tropical storms, told the Japan Times that he first drove to Osaka earlier this week to prepare for a then-forecast landfall in the Shikoku region. But after two days, he travelled to Tokyo and flew instead to Kagoshima Prefecture on Wednesday morning.

“Shanshan has been one of the bigger outliers among all the storms I’ve tracked in terms of the continued changes in forecast and how the computer weather models are handling it,” Mr Reynolds told the outlet.