A landslide triggered by heavy rain killed two people Wednesday morning in the city of Oita as a major typhoon headed north-northeast over the sea southwest of Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, hitting Okinawa's main island with wind up to 90 kph.
All Wednesday morning flights from Naha airport were canceled, airline officials said.
Rough seas also forced the cancellation of ferry services for Miyako and Ishigaki islands off the main island of Okinawa.
At an industrial waste dump in the city of Oita, land slid at about 7:45 a.m. due to downpours and buried two workers alive, killing them, local police reported. The accident occurred while one of the two was operating a power shovel and the other was driving a dump truck at the scene. The two men were taken to a hospital but pronounced dead upon arrival. They were not identified.
The Meteorological Agency called for precautions, saying the season's 18th typhoon is moving slowly and is expected to be a long one, bringing rainfall of more than 50 mm per hour in some parts of Okinawa Prefecture.
At noon, the typhoon was about 110 km southwest of Naha, moving at 10 kph, with an atmospheric pressure of 935 hectopascals at its center and winds reaching 162 kph, the agency said.
The typhoon also brought heavy rain to western and eastern Japan, with 52 mm recorded in Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, from 5 to 6 a.m.
Up to 250 mm of rain is expected in Shikoku and Okinawa, 200 mm in the Tokai and Kinki regions, 150 mm in southern Kyushu and the Chugoku, Hokuriku, Kanto, Koshin and Tohoku regions, and 130 mm in northern Kyushu through this morning.