Millions Told to Flee as Japan Hit by ‘One of the Biggest Typhoons in Recent Years’

Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in southwest Japan on Thursday with strong winds and heavy rain, killing at least four people and injuring 94 or more, reported BBC News.

Millions were told to evacuate as Shanshan — downgraded Thursday evening to a “severe tropical storm” — knocked out electricity for 237,000-plus households, forced the closure of major automobile factories and caused the cancellation of over 700 flights.

“I’ve never experienced such a strong wind or tornado in my 31 years of life,” Tomoki Maeda, a funeral parlor employee in southern Kyushu’s Miyazaki city, told Reuters.

Wind gusts of 157 miles per hour downed power lines and ripped apart buildings in the southern portion of the country, and authorities have said the storm could prove to be one of the strongest to ever strike the region.

“This is one of the biggest typhoons in recent years, for a prefecture that experiences many typhoons every year,” Kensei Tomisako, a Satsumasendai disaster response official, told The New York Times in an interview.

At its peak, Typhoon Shanshan had the strength of a Category 4 hurricane. It was projected to continue north through Kyushu, then shift east on Friday into Saturday before moving inland and losing strength.

Flood and landslide warnings were issued by authorities for many areas in the southwest parts of the country.

The weather agency said the storm was predicted to reach Tokyo around the weekend, Reuters reported.

A house collapsed in a landslide in Aichi, a central Honshu island prefecture, leaving two people missing.

Shanshan brought record rainfall, with 2.6 feet of rain falling in some areas of Kyushu in a span of 48 hours, forecasters said, as reported by The New York Times.

Shinkansen bullet-train service in Kyushu was suspended on Thursday due to the rain, with many lines linking cities like Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka in the western part of the country also interrupted.

Madoka Kubo, who runs a hotel in Hitoyoshi — a historic, riverside city in Kumamoto prefecture — said she was housing elderly evacuees after the cancellation of all her reservations, Reuters reported.

The transportation ministry said hundreds of ferry and bus services had also been disrupted.

“This typhoon is scary. In terms of disaster, we are getting a large amount of rain so I don’t know what will happen going forward,” Norimasa Sakanoshita, who traveled to Fukuoka from Tokyo to attend a meeting, told Reuters, as reported by BBC News.