Ten killed, 16 missing after fierce typhoon hits Tokyo

Ten people were killed and 16 were missing after the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in decades paralysed Tokyo, causing rivers to overflow and leaving almost half a million homes without power, Reuters has quoted Japan's public broadcaster NHK as saying on Sunday.

Authorities lifted rain and flood warnings for the Kanto region around a becalmed Tokyo as the typhoon ploughed up Japan's northeast coast and authorities raced to assess the damage. Warnings for areas north of the capital began to be lifted by Sunday morning.

Typhoon Hagibis was expected to head out to sea on Sunday evening after churning its way up the northern island of Hokkaido.

Some 425,000 homes were without power, the government said, reviving fears of a repeat of the weeks-long power outages suffered after another typhoon hit east of Tokyo last month.

NHK showed swaths of low-lying residential areas inundated in parts of central and eastern Japan by overflowing rivers, with some of the worst damage caused by Chikuma river in central Japan's Nagano prefecture.

Authorities issued evacuation advisories and orders for more than six million people across Japan as the storm unleashed the heaviest rain and winds in years. Some 126 injuries have been reported so far, NHK said.

The storm, which the government said could be the strongest to hit Tokyo since 1958, brought record-breaking rainfall in many areas, including the popular resort town of Hakone, which was hit with 939.5 mm (37 inches) of rain over 24 hours.

The capital's main airports, Haneda and Narita, stopped flights from landing and connecting trains were suspended, forcing the cancellation of more than a thousand flights.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.