Typhoons kill three in Japan, 42 in Philippines

TOKYO - A typhoon that left a trail of death in the Philippines pummeled eastern Japan on Saturday, killing three people, flooding cities, snapping power lines and burying homes in landslides.

After traveling up Japan's Pacific coast, Typhoon Kirogi was headed for Hachinohe, a city 300 miles north of Tokyo on Japan's main island of Honshu.

Residents of Mito, northeast of Tokyo, trudged knee-deep through torrents of muddy water that raced down streets and lapped storefronts, TV footage showed.

An 81-year-old man drowned after falling into a swollen canal near Mito, police said. Another man, aged 30, was found floating in a canal after his car veered off a wet road and hit a guard rail, propelling him into the irrigation ditch outside Tokyo, police said.

A 3-year-old boy also drowned after falling into a swollen river near a park where he was playing with his father, police said.

Officials in the Philippines said Saturday that the death toll there reached 42 from Kirogi and a second typhoon, Kai-tak, that continued to dump monsoon rains on the country's northwestern region. About 800,000 people - up from 400,000 Friday - crowded evacuation centers in schools and government buildings, according to the government disaster management agency.

The Red Cross and the National Disaster Coordinating Council said another 23 were missing and feared dead, including six from a boat that capsized Monday off the western coast of Luzon.

Coast guard officials in the Philippines said four people died and four were still missing after a fishing boat carrying 32 people capsized Friday afternoon near Mindoro Occidental province. The 24 other passengers were rescued.

Kai-tak was headed Saturday for Taiwan and was located about 160 miles southwest of the southern tip of the island. Authorities urged residents to evacuate several mountainous areas in central Taiwan that were struck hard by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake last September.

Torrential rains from Kirogi, which was packing maximum winds of 65 mph, flooded at least 300 homes in the Tokyo metropolitan area, according to the Tokyo Fire Department.

The typhoon knocked out power lines in several parts of central Japan, with electricity cut to 20,000 homes for four hours, said Soichi Takeguchi, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co.

More than 100 domestic flights were canceled and some bullet train and rail services in Tokyo were suspended, news reports said.

The storm lashed the Izu island chain south of Tokyo early Saturday before heading north to barrel into Japan's main island of Honshu.

The festival hall at a shrine and three homes were demolished by landslides overnight on Kozushima, where 788 residents had been evacuated. As skies cleared, officials lifted the typhoon evacuation order for residents on the island, 95 miles south of Tokyo.

Concerns remained that the typhoon season could jeopardize a July 21-23 summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations. The meeting is to be held on Okinawa island.

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On the Net:

Japan's Meteorological Agency: http://www.kishou.go.jp

Hong Kong Observatory: http://www.info.gov.hk/hko/ and http://www.weather.gov.hk/