TOKYO (AFP) - Powerful Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Japan on Saturday, killing at least two people and prompting authorities to issue their highest level of disaster warning over "unprecedented" downpours that caused flooding and landslides.
Around 7.3 million people were placed under non-compulsory evacuation orders and more than 30 people were injured, four seriously.
Even before making landfall, Hagibis caused enormous disruption, forcing the cancellation of two Rugby World Cup matches, delaying the Japanese Grand Prix and grounding all flights in the Tokyo region.
It crashed into Japan's main Honshu island just before 7:00pm (1000 GMT), barrelling into Izu, a peninsula southwest of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, packing gusts of wind up to 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour) around an hour.
The storm claimed its first victim hours before arriving on the coast, when strong winds from its outer bands flipped a car in Chiba east of Tokyo and killed the driver.
*****Hours before the worst of the storm arrived, its outer bands killed a man and damaged houses in Chiba, east of Tokyo