Powerful typhoon kills 10, shutters airport in Japan

TOKYO (Reuters/AFP) – A powerful typhoon killed 10 people in western Japan and an airport company started to transfer some 3,000 stranded passengers by boats from a flooded airport, the government said on Wednesday, as more than a million homes were without power.

Typhoon "Jebi" slammed into the west coast of Japan around noon on Tuesday, bringing maximum winds of 216 kilometers (135 miles) an hour and heavy rain.

The powerful gusts ripped sheeting from rooftops, overturned trucks on bridges and swept a 2,591-ton tanker anchored in Osaka Bay into a bridge leading to Kansai International Airport.

The damage to the bridge left the airport, which is on an artificial island, cut off from the mainland, and around 3,000 people were stranded at the facility overnight, a transport ministry official told AFP.

Parts of the airport's runways and basement were also flooded after high waves whipped up by the storm washed into the facility.

On Wednesday morning, a boat service was ferrying people from the airport to nearby Kobe, the transport ministry official said.

But there was no indication yet when the airport, which runs over 400 flights a day, might reopen.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said about 300 people were injured. It was uncertain when the airport would reopen and some roads and train lines in the affected areas were still closed, he said. About 1.2 million homes were without power.

"We had a blackout so there was no air conditioning. It was hot," a woman transported Wednesday by boat to Kobe Airport told public broadcaster NHK.

"I'd never expected this extent of damage from a typhoon."

NHK said the toll in the storm stood at nine, with Jiji news agency saying five of the dead were in Osaka prefecture.

Hundreds more were injured, mostly by flying debris, local media said.

Evacuation advisories were issued for more than 1.22 million people as of Wednesday morning, while another 29,600 people under stronger, though still not mandatory, evacuation orders, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

And 16,000 people spent the night in shelters across 20 prefectures, Jiji reported.

Winds bring down roof The fast moving typhoon left land on Tuesday night, moving offshore from the central Ishikawa region, but it left a trail of destruction in its wake.