Close to two million people have been told to evacuate and hundreds of flights have been cancelled in Japan as Typhoon Dujuan threatens Tokyo.
The weather system is already bringing winds of around 144 kilometres per hour as it moved to around 130 kilometres south of Katsuura City near Tokyo on Monday, and is threatening to bring record rainfall.
Japan Airlines cancelled 135 flights and All Nippon Airways scrapped 140, while more than 50,000 households near Tokyo are without power.
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More than 1.9 million residents in and around the capital including Ibaraki, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka and Saitama have been urged to evacuate, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
The evacuations are not mandatory however.
Tokyo is currently under a level 3 warning for heavy rain, with residents urged not to use basements.
Railway operators in Tokyo and neighbouring regions have suspended services on some lines.
Landslide warnings have also been issued for Tokyo as well as for Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures.
Authorities in Sodegaura city, about an hour’s drive from Tokyo, have issued the highest level of alert.
The city’s 40,000 residents have been told to move above the second floor and “protect their lives”.
One man has been rescued after becoming trapped while working to clear debris from a landslide in Sodegaura.
There are reports of a woman in her 60s who may have been swept away in a landslide or buried alive in Yokosuka in Kanagawa prefecture.
In areas where warnings have been issued, “there’s a risk the rain will continue as the typhoon moves north”, Takuya Hosomiof the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) told reporters.
The JMA warned on Sunday that rain and winds were expected to intensify even before the typhoon’s arrival.
“The total rainfall through Tuesday could exceed the average monthly rainfall for September, resulting in record-breaking heavy rain,” the agency said.
One person has already been mildly injured and nine houses have been damaged due to the typhoon.
Dujuan also forced the early closure of the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world’s biggest video-game trade fairs, on Monday, its final day.
A major outdoor music festival and a baseball match both scheduled to be held in Chiba were also cancelled.
Social media posts showed images of roads in front of Kamakura station, a popular sightseeing spot, were flooded.
“There is flooding in various parts of the city, so travelling by car is dangerous,” Kamakura City Mayor Takashi Matsuo said on X.
Japan often sees strong typhoons in the late summer and early autumn, and other storms have already disrupted some events at the Asian Games being hosted in the country.