Japanese typhoon death toll reaches 51

Japan’s deadliest storm in more than a decade unleashed flash floods that washed away entire hillsides, killing up to 51 people and leaving at least 30 people missing before it veered east into the Pacific Ocean today.

Rescue workers and Japanese troops worked through the night and morning, digging through mud and debris and combing flooded rivers and coastal waters to search for the missing.

Authorities said the storm’s death toll was the highest since 1988.

“The death toll is likely to keep rising, as we take stock of the damage,” said National Police Agency spokesman Kojun Chibana.

Typhoon Tokage blasted across Japan yesterday before being downgraded to a tropical storm.

Early today, the storm headed east to open seas, its fury spent.

Television footage showed powerful gusts uprooting huge trees, flash floods submerging cars to their windows and entire hillsides crumbling away in landslides across southern and central Japan.

Nationwide, more than 7,000 homes were flooded and hundreds of others ripped apart or buried, police spokesman Chibana said. More than 13,000 people across the country were staying at temporary shelters, officials said.

Tokage, the Japanese word for lizard, was the record eighth typhoon to hit Japan this year.

The last time storms killed more people was in September 1988, when 84 died in a nearly continuous two-week spell of typhoons, said Fire and Disaster Management Agency spokesman Yoshikazu Nishiwaki.

The storm forced the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights, stranding tens of thousands of travellers.

Earlier this month, Typhoon Ma-on killed six people in Japan after swiping the country’s Pacific coast. A week before that, Typhoon Meari killed 22.

This year’s typhoons have far outstripped the previous post-World War II record of six, set in 1990.

The storms have left nearly 220 people dead or missing.