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A rapidly weakening typhoon Lan touched down in Japan on Monday, setting off landslides and floods. But, leaving Tokyo largely unscathed before moving northward off the Pacific coast as millions struggled to get to the polls for a national election.
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At least two people were killed and dozens of others are missing. Thousands of commuters and other travelers were stranded while train and plane services faced disruption.
Authorities advised people living in coastal areas or near rivers to evacuate to shelters before Typhoon Lan, described as "very large and very strong", hit Tokyo and surrounding regions early Monday morning.
The typhoon left the Japanese archipelago by about 9:00 a.m. local time, after making landfall in Shizuoka, southwest of Tokyo, six hours before, the weather agency said.
The storm, which had already dumped torrential rain over much of the country on the weekend, packed gusts of up to 162 kilometers per hour, according to the meteorological agency.
The typhoon claimed its first victims Sunday when scaffolding, at a construction site in Fukuoka in western Japan, collapsed on a male passer-by and a fisherman died during a failed rescue after his engine failed.
Another man is unaccounted for after a landslide engulfed his home, NHK public television said, although his wife was dug out by rescuers.
Rivers burst their banks in several parts of Japan causing fishing boats to be tossed up on land. A container ship was stranded after being swept onto a harbor wall, but all 19 crew members escaped harm.
At least 89 people were injured across the nation, NHK said, but the government confirmed 17.
Television footage showed rescuers tugging a rubber boat carrying an elderly woman in a residential area in Chiba southeast of Tokyo as a flooded river engulfed the area.
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While some analysts were expecting a worst-case scenario, Japan's developed infrastructure is well-prepared for typhoons.
“For typhoons, they are better prepared and better able to deal with them than the U.S. is for hurricanes,” Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research in Georgia, U.S., told Bloomberg on Friday.
“Bring that same storm into New York City or Miami and it is a $US75 billion to $US100 billion storm.”
Typhoon Lan is the latest in a string of tropical storms including Maria, Irma, Harvey and Ophelia that have struck Eastern Caribbean islands, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida, Ireland and the United Kingdom in the last two months, mostly with devastating results.
Some residents from the Japanese capital braved torrential rain and driving winds to participate in the elections. But, the turnout at polls across the country - boosted largely by people voting early in anticipation of the typhoon - was expected to be only a fraction higher than the all-time low.
The foul weather further dampened the electoral process when ferries to a remote island in the west were canceled due to high waves, forcing officials to suspend the counting of votes there.
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