Typhoon Vongfong, this year’s strongest storm, has injured at least 25 people as it pounded Japan’s southern island of Okinawa on Sunday.
The monster storm is on its way to the islands of Kyushu and Honshu, where evacuations of at least 150,000 people have occurred as the typhoon uprooted trees, flooded streets and cut power to more than 60,000 homes, the Associated Press reported.
Okinawa authorities have reported several injuries, some serious, including a girl and a man in his 20’s who had their fingers amputated by a slamming door.
“These are two separate cases, but in both cases they lost one of their fingers as the door closed violently due to the strong winds,” a local official said.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency expect the storm to make landfall on the islands early Monday morning local time and will reach Tokyo on Tuesday. The agency said that Vongfong, which is packed with maximum sustained winds of 180 kilometers (110 miles) per hour, is in the southern part of Kagoshima early on Sunday.
“The typhoon is feared to go near or make landfall on the Kyushu and Honshu main islands through Monday to Tuesday,” meteorologist Hiroshi Sasaki told reporters.
Vongfong was downgraded from a super typhoon, which is equivalent to a Category-5 Hurricane, as it weakened overnight. It now slowly travels at about 15 kph (9.6 mph), The Wall Street Journal reported.
The storm came in a week after Typhoon Phanfone lashed through Japan, killing seven people.
