Typhoon Talas kills 2 in central Japan

Two people were killed when Typhoon Talas lashed central Japan with torrential rain and fierce winds on Saturday.

The northeast Asian country is currently in typhoon season, which brings about 20 heavy storms each year that often cause flooding and landslides. 

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The city of Shizuoka, southwest of the capital, Tokyo, was hit especially hard by the arrival of Talas with a record 417 millimeters of rainfall, officials said.

Winds at the center of the storm were blowing at about 65 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour), with peak gusts of almost 100 kph (62 mph), the country's meteorological agency said.

Police said one man died after he crashed his car into a pond in the wider Shizuoka prefecture. A man in his 40s was killed in a landslide.

In another part of the region, a road collapsed under the weight of the flood waters.

Japanese media reports said one man managed to crawl out of a truck that got stuck but another man was missing.

Three people were injured in a mudslide in Shizuoka, according to police.

Power was also cut to about 120,000 households, partly due to a landslide knocking over two electricity pylons, the local utility company said.

The firm said it could take several months for the pylons to be repaired.

Regional train services were stopped for several hours, leaving about 1,000 people stranded at an arena in Shizuoka where a concert was held Friday night.

Typhoon downgraded, potential for more devastation

Forecasters downgraded the typhoon to an extratropical cyclone within hours of making landfall but also forecast further torrential rain with the potential for landslides and flooding.

In the city of Yokohama, some 30 kilometers south of Tokyo, about 3,000 people were ordered to leave their homes as a precaution.

Talas was headed toward the Japanese capital and hammering a wide area around the city with heavy showers.

Second typhoon in a week

Talas reached Japan just days after Typhoon Nanmadol, one of the biggest storms in years, killed at least four people and injured more than 150 in the country's southwest.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.

At the same time, it's also driving water scarcity in some parts of Asia.

mm/wd (AFP, AP, Reuters)