By Satoshi Sugiyama and Kiyoshi Takenaka
TOKYO (Reuters) -At least three people were killed in southwestern Japan on Thursday as Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in Kagoshima prefecture, bringing heavy rain and very strong winds as well as snarling air traffic and knocking out power to over a quarter million households.
Major automakers including Toyota and Nissan suspended operations in some or all of their domestic factories due to the storm.
The typhoon, with gusts of up to 55 metres per second (198 km per hour/123 mph), made landfall near Satsumasendai city located in the country’s southwestern island of Kyushu on Thursday morning, the weather agency said.
Authorities warned the storm could be one of the strongest ever to hit the region, and local governments have issued evacuation orders for millions of residents in several prefectures.
Three people were dead, one was missing, two were severely injured, and five suffered minor injuries because of the typhoon, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
“As this typhoon is moving slowly, total amount of rain could be rather big,” Hayashi told a regular news conference.
Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed walls torn and window glass of buildings broken in Miyazaki city in southern Kyushu, with objects scattered on the street or hanging from utility poles.
More than 250,000 households in seven prefectures are experiencing power outage as of 9:00 a.m. on Thursday (0000 GMT), according to Kyushu Electric Power Co.
After hovering over Kyushu for the next few days, the storm is expected to approach the central and eastern regions, including the capital Tokyo, around the weekend, the weather agency said.
Airlines, including ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines, have already announced cancellations of more than 600 domestic flights. Train services have been suspended in many areas of Kyushu.
Typhoon Shanshan is the latest harsh weather system to hit Japan, following Typhoon Ampil, which also led to blackouts and evacuations, earlier this month.
(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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