TOKYO —  Powerful typhoon Vongfong barreled into Japan’s main islands Monday, with at least one person missing and dozens injured while more than 500 flights were grounded, officials and local media said.



Winds of up to 180 km per hour whipped ashore as the typhoon made landfall at Makurazaki on Kyushu island on Monday morning, the meteorological agency said.



The season’s 19th typhoon, which had already struck Japan’s southwestern island chain of Okinawa over the weekend, was located in Kochi prefecture as of 3:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) and still packing strong winds and heavy rain, the agency said.



It is forecast to churn northeast through the Japanese archipelago at a speed of 30 km per hour, the agency said, adding that it may reach the Kanto region — which includes Tokyo — late Monday or early Tuesday. “It is necessary to be on strict alert against gusts and high waves as winds can blow powerfully even in areas far from the center of the typhoon,” Hiroshi Sasaki, the agency’s chief meteorologist, told a news conference.



Television footage showed the roof and walls of a house ripped off by gusts in Makurazaki, while huge waves were smashing into breakwaters.



NHK said at least 56 people had been injured in typhoon-related accidents so far, a figure which included the 23 hurt as the monster storm pounded the southern Okinawa islands.



Local authorities issued evacuation advisories to as many as 450,000 residents mainly in southwestern Japan on Monday morning, NHK said.



At Shizuoka in central Japan three Chinese people were swept away by high waves triggered by the typhoon on Sunday afternoon as they were fishing on the coast, a local police spokesman said. “Two of them were rescued safely but the remaining one aged 26 is still missing,” the spokesman said.  — AFP