At least 17 people had been killed after Typhoon Wipha scraped by Tokyo and its surrounding areas, slamming an island south of the capital especially hard as it sped northeast along Japan's coast.

Izu Oshima island, located some 100 kilometers south of Tokyo, was hit by record precipitation of 122.5 millimeters per hour, triggering floods and mudslides that killed at least 16 people. Local reports said at least another 50 people remained unaccounted-for on the island as rescue troops cleared uprooted trees, crushed houses and debris to access blocked areas. Total rainfall on the island, which is administered by Tokyo, surpassed 800 millimeters in the last 24 hours, over twice the average rainfall for the entire month of October.

As of 0600 GMT, Wipha was moving at 85 kph around 330 kilometers south of Nemuro City on the northern island of Hokkaido, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. Classified as a "large" typhoon on the its scale, it the atmospheric pressure at its center was 960 hectopascals and it was generating strong winds of 35 meters per second.

"It's the strongest typhoon in 10 years to pass the Kanto region," said Hiroyuki Uchida, the weather agency's chief forecaster during a news conference Tuesday.

Elsewhere, a woman in her 40s drowned in a river in Tokyo's Machida city, while several more people were missing, local media reported.