A powerful typhoon that hit southwestern Japan has caused floods and landslides, paralysed transport, and led officials to tell more than 100,000 to flee their homes.
Sixteen people are missing and 23 have been reported injured.
At about 2pm (6am Irish time), the eye of typhoon Nabi, meaning "butterfly" in Korean, made landfall at Isahaya near Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Japan's third-biggest main island and home to about 10 per cent of the country's almost 130 million population.
A total of about 110,000 residents of Kyushu and the neighbouring main island of Shikoku were told to evacuate, and more than 16,000 left their homes voluntarily.
Winds had weakened slightly but were gusting up to 126 km an hour at the storm's centre, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.
Military personnel were sent to help evacuate residents of the town of Takaoka-cho in Kyushu after the governor of Miyazaki prefecture requested assistance, said a Japanese government spokesman.
"There is expected to be further damage due to the typhoon so all agencies and ministries are joining together to respond," he said.
The typhoon was moving north at 30 kilometres an hour but was forecast to swing east and travel up the Japan Sea coast, bringing rain and strong winds to western Japan and parts of South Korea before hitting the northernmost main Japanese island of Hokkaido.