Japan: Nine million people have been told to evacuate as super typhoon Nanmadol hits

Nine million people have been told to evacuate their homes as Japan is battered by one of the worst typhoons the country has ever seen.

The super typhoon Nanmadol has killed two people and injured almost 90.

Nanmadol has been categorised as a super typhoon by the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, a term applied to storms with sustained wind speeds of 240km/h or more.

It is the equivalent of a category four or five hurricane.

It hit Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, on Sunday morning, and is set to reach Honshu, the largest island, in the coming days.

Tens of thousands of people spent Sunday night in emergency shelters, and almost 350,000 homes are without power.

Transport and business has been disrupted, and the country is braced for extensive flooding and landslides.

A level-five alert, the highest on Japan's disaster warning scale, has been issued for more than 500,000 people in the Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Oita, Kumamoto and Yamaguchi areas.

[Source: BBC]