Japanese islanders die and homes damaged in mudslides but typhoon spares Tokyo and Fukushima nuclear plant

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A typhoon has killed 17 people in Japan, but largely spared the capital and brushed by the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power station.

More than 50 people were missing after typhoon Wipha roared up Japan's east coast, including two schoolboys engulfed by waves on a beach; 20 more were hurt by falls or being struck by flying debris. About 20,000 people were told to leave their homes because of the danger of flooding and hundreds of flights were cancelled.

Sixteen people were killed on Izu Oshima island, about 75 miles (120km) south of Tokyo, as rivers burst their banks. The storm set off mudslides along a mile-long stretch of mountains.

Wipha sustained winds of 78mph (126km/h) with gusts up to 180km/h.

Television footage showed roads clogged with wreckage and houses with gaping holes smashed into them.

"I heard a crackling sound and then the trees on the hillside all fell over," a woman on Izu Oshima told NHK television.

The storm brought hurricane-force winds and torrential rain to the Tokyo metropolitan area of 30 million people at the peak of the morning rush-hour.

The operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Corp, cancelled all offshore work and secured machinery as the storm approached.

The operator, known as Tepco, has been struggling to contain radioactive leaks since a 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused extensive damage and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

A Tepco spokesman said Typhoon Wipha had caused no new problems at the plant, which is on the coast 130 miles (220km) north of Tokyo.

The storm dumped heavy rain that had to be pumped out of protective containers at the base of about 1,000 tanks storing radioactive water, the byproduct of a jerry-rigged cooling system designed to control wrecked reactors.

The rainwater was checked for radioactivity and released into the sea, the company spokesman said.

Wipha has been down-graded to a tropical depression.

During the height of the storm, more than 500 flights at Tokyo's Haneda and Narita airports were cancelled, and thousands of schools closed.Typhoon Wipha was the strongest storm to hit the region since October 2004. That cyclone triggered floods and landslides that killed almost 100 people, forced thousands from their homes and caused billions of dollars in damage.