Three dead as Typhoon Shanshan hits Japan's south

TOKYO, Sep 17 (Reuters) Three people died in floods and landslides, two went missing and at least 40 were injured as a powerful typhoon moved in on Japan's main southwestern island of Kyushu today.

Typhoon Shanshan was carrying winds of up to 160 km per hour near its centre, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

Though weakening, the storm disrupted transport as it pounded many western areas of Japan with torrential rain. About 170 flights in and out of southwestern Japan were cancelled today, public broadcaster NHK said.

Shanshan was 220 km west-southwest of Makurazaki, 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo, at 9:00 a.m. 0530IST and was moving north-northeast at 35 km per hour.

The eye of the storm may make landfall on Kyushu later in the day, the agency said.

Shanshan, now a Category 3 typhoon, is expected to fade into a tropical storm over the next 24 hours and head into the Sea of Japan, according to the U.K.-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com).

Three people died in Saga prefecture on Kyushu yesterday due to landslides and flooding caused by the storm's heavy rain.

Police said they were searching for a 50-year-old firefighter and a 27-year-old newspaper reporter who went missing late yesterday in Hiroshima, in the west of Japan's main Honshu island.

Forty people were injured on the chain of islands that make up Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, Kyodo news agency said.

REUTERS LL HT0900