A strong typhoon slammed into north-eastern Japan on Tuesday, dumping heavy rain and generating high waves that caused flooding along the Pacific coast. Typhoon Lionrock made landfall near the city of Ofunato shortly before 6 pm (0900 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency said, after moving up Japan's Pacific Ocean coastline. Packing wind gusts up to 162 kilometres (100 miles) per hour, the storm was moving north-west at 50 kilometres per hour, it said.
It is the first typhoon to directly land in the region from the Pacific Ocean since the country's present weather observation system was introduced in 1951, the agency said. Typhoons usually approach Japan from the south and south-west before moving northward across the archipelago. While there were no official reports of casualties, local media reported some minor injuries, such as a fall by a 40-year-old woman in strong winds. Authorities warned of landslides and high water due to expected heavy rain of up to eight centimetres per hour. Landfall, which came at high tide, brought flooding along the coast.
Television footage showed local residents struggling to walk amid water above their knees in the city of Miyako, where some cars were half-submerged and some 600 people were advised to evacuate. Miyako was one of the north-eastern coastline cities hit in March 2011 by a deadly tsunami generated by a massive magnitude 9.0 offshore earthquake, which also triggered meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.