Typhoon pounds Japan - 41 seamen missing

A powerful typhoon pounded Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu with heavy rains and strong winds today, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes and knocking out power to more than a million households.

Across the country 75 people were injured, while 22 crew members of an Indonesian freighter were missing.

Police and coast guard were also investigating reports that a Russian-registered freighter had sunk in western Hiroshima prefecture and its 19 crew were missing, said a police spokesman.

Packing winds of up to 89 mph Typhoon Songda ploughed into the city of Nagasaki, 640 miles south-west of Tokyo, before it roared across western Honshu, dumping heavy rains and unleashing fierce winds in its path.

Coastguards were searching for the 22 member crew of a 6,300-ton Indonesian cargo ship after the vessel ran aground and was flooded, said spokesman Koichiro Maeda.

A rescue team had so far only located one empty lifeboat in the area.

Songda was the record seventh typhoon to hit Japan this year – exceeding the six storms that lashed the country in 1990, the Meteorological Agency said.