Lumbering Typhoon Kills Four in Japan

TOKYO —  Powerful Typhoon Pabuk, packing winds of up to 68 mph, raged steadily across central Japan today, killing at least four people, disrupting air, sea and rail traffic and flooding hundreds of homes.

The Meteorological Agency said the first typhoon in two years to hit the main island of Honshu would probably make a direct, possibly severe strike on Tokyo in the evening.

“It is moving so slowly that it could have a more devastating impact,” an agency official said. “We don’t expect any tangible change in the strength of the typhoon in the foreseeable future.”

It would be the first typhoon to hit Tokyo directly in three years, the official said.

The storm was near Hamamatsu, about 125 miles west of Tokyo, as of 8 a.m. today. It was moving northeast at 12.5 mph.

Police said Pabuk--a Laotian word for a large freshwater fish--had killed at least four people, left one man missing and injured 20.

A railway worker was electrocuted while removing branches from an overhead train cable, police said.

A 66-year-old man died when he fell from the roof of a ceramics factory in central Aichi, they said. He was cleaning a gutter to prepare for the typhoon.

A 67-year-old man was missing after braving the storm to make sure his fishing boat was safe.

About 7,000 residents in the western prefecture of Wakayama, where the storm first made landfall, were evacuated from their homes and were sheltering in public buildings as the storm lashed the region.

The storm had whipped up high waves along the Pacific coast and heavy rains across much of Honshu.

The Meteorological Agency said the storm could dump more than a foot of rain in some areas of southwestern and central Japan.

Railway officials said they would reduce bullet train service between two of Japan’s biggest cities--Tokyo and Osaka--by two-thirds today.

The typhoon forced cancellation of 180 trains in southwestern Japan on Tuesday, affecting 31,000 riders. It had already forced cancellations of dozens of international flights.

Officials said the storm had cut power to several hundred homes in southwestern Japan.

It has also threatened the maiden launch of Japan’s next-generation H-2A rocket, which is set for Saturday.