Japan is being pummelling by one of its most powerful typhoons on record, and nine million people have been ordered to abandon their homes.
The super typhoon Nanmadol has killed two and injured nearly ninety persons.
It struck the southernmost island of Japan, Kyushu, early Sunday morning and is expected to travel over the main island of Honshu in the coming days.
Sunday night, tens of thousands of people slept in emergency shelters, and about 350,000 homes are without power.
Transport and commerce have been affected, and the nation is preparing for widespread flooding and landslides.
Nanmadol has produced wind gusts of up to 234km/h (145mph), and certain places are expected to receive 400mm (16 inches) of precipitation in the next 24 hours.
Hundreds of bullet train services, ferries, and aircraft have been canceled. Several stores and other businesses have shuttered, and sandbags have been placed around some properties for protection.
Sunday morning, the typhoon made landfall in the city of Kagoshima, on the most southern island of Japan, Kyushu.
A Kyushu river has overflowed its banks.
According to NHK, one guy was murdered when his vehicle was drowned in water, and another was buried by a landslide. One other person is still missing, and 87 people have been injured.
Local video footage depicts buildings with ripped-off roofs and toppled billboards.
Wednesday, the storm is expected to shift east and pass over the main island of Japan, Honshu, before moving out to sea. Tokyo has had severe rain, and the Tozai subway line has been suspended due to flooding.
More than 500,000 people in the Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Oita, Kumamoto, and Yamaguchi regions have received a level five alert, the highest level on Japan’s disaster warning scale.
After a level four notice, almost nine million people have been instructed to leave portions of the Kyushu, Shikoku, and Chugoku areas.
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) has classified Nanmadol as a super typhoon, a classification given to storms having sustained wind speeds of at least 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour). This storm is comparable to category four or five hurricanes.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has postponed his trip to New York, where he was scheduled to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, until Tuesday to monitor the storm’s impact.
Influenced by the natural phenomena known as La Nia, scientists have forecast an extremely busy hurricane season this year.
As a result of climate change, warmer sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean may also have an effect.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), strong tropical cyclones are projected to rise globally.
