**A typhoon has made landfall in Japan for the first time in two years, causing widespread disruption.**Reports say one person has been killed and more than 20 injured in strong winds and heavy rain.
Typhoon Melor struck south-west of Tokyo on the main island of Honshu, flooding roads, uprooting trees, and ripping roofs from houses.
Many flights and train services were suspended, st*****ng commuters in the morning rush-hour.
The car-maker Toyota halted production at factories in central Japan.
Flights cancelled
The BBC’s Tokyo correspondent Roland Buerk reported that the typhoon made landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu shortly before dawn in Aichi prefecture, to the south and west of Tokyo.
Driving rain flooded roads. Strong winds ripped the roofs off houses, and knocked over trucks on the highways.
The one fatality so far occurred when a man was killed by a falling tree.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled because of the storm, as have bullet train services.
In Tokyo overland train lines were temporarily suspended, st*****ng commuters in the busy morning rush hour.
Typhoon Melor is bringing gusts of wind of up to 198km/h (123 mph), cutting a swathe across densely populated central Japan.
It weakened slightly as it surged across the main island of Honshu, but “is still very dangerous,” said Takeo Tanaka, a weather forecaster from the Meteorological Agency.
“Winds are violent and rain is torrential. You should also be on guard against mudslides,” he said.
The agency warned that extensive areas in Japan, including Tokyo and the western industrial hub of Osaka, were at high risk of landslides.
Typhoon season
Tens of thousands of households were without electricity in western Mie and central Gifu prefectures, while a blackout also hit 3,500 households in Tokyo and in neighbouring Kanagawa, power companies said.
Despite Japan’s extensive defences against floods and landslides, including storm surge barriers in coastal areas, Western Japan was battered in October 2004 by Typhoon Tokage, which killed 95 people.
In August this year, Typhoon Etau brought flash floods and landslides that killed at least 25 people in Japan, even though it avoided a direct hit.
Another powerful storm, Ketsana, has caused devastation across Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of people, mostly in the Philippines and Vietnam.
In Taiwan more than 600 people died after Typhoon Morakot struck in August.