TOKYO, (AFP) - The death toll from Typhoon Tokage rose to 67 with 21 still missing, the worst toll from a typhoon in Japan in 25 years, officials said.
The typhoon injured 281 people and flooded more than 20,000 houses, a police official said, adding more than 380 houses were destroyed or damaged.
The number of casualties was the worst since 1979 when 115 people were killed or were reported missing presumed dead after an October typhoon, a government official said.
Tokage battered Japan earlier this week, swamping houses and overturning cars before easing early Thursday.
Rescuers searched by boat among flooded houses for the missing. Trains that had stopped before the storm were toppled by the fierce winds.
Helicopters and rafts overnight rescued 37 people, most of them in their mid-60s, who were stranded on top of a tourist bus trapped in floodwater at Maizuru 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tokyo.
"We were standing on the roof of the bus and I was shaking as the water level went up to my knees. My knees still hurt," one male passenger told NHK.
Sixteen other residents in Maizuru were also rescued by helicopters and boats from the armed forces, Jiji Press said.
Some 170 rescue operators including 101 troops spent the day digging through mud for a potential survivor of a massive landslide at Tamano in western Okayama prefecture, but discovered late Thursday that he was dead.
"Unfortunately, we found the body of the remaining one after discovering four others in the morning from the site, where seven houses were destroyed by the mudslide," said Koichiro Yonezawa, an official of the city's anti-disaster office.
"We will switch our operation from rescue to reconstruction tomorrow as damage to the area is really sizable," he said.
Tokage, which means lizard in Japanese, is the biggest typhoon to batter Japan since 1991 when the Meteorological Agency began classifying typhoons by the size of their storm zones.
It was also the deadliest typhoon to strike Japan since 1991 when the toll was one higher at 62.
The nine previous typhoons that have hit Japan this year caused a total of 102 deaths and left 13 missing and presumed dead.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi directed the minister in charge of disaster management, Yoshitaka Murata, to visit the worst hit areas.
"There was really terrible damage. I want you to go and inspect the situation," Koizumi told the minister.
Emperor Akihito said the typhoon "generated the worst damage in the past 10 years".
"I am feeling very sorry," the monarch said.
Television footage showed cars crushed by a fallen tree in the western city of Hiroshima, while farther south high waves destroyed a concrete breakwater and ripped through walls of seashore houses in Kochi.
Authorities forced some 15,000 to evacuate their homes and another 5,000 households voluntarily went to temporary shelters, NHK said.
Tokage was early Thursday downgraded to a temperate depression and was moving east at 45 kilometers (28 miles) per hour.
The typhoon drenched Tokyo late Wednesday and paralyzed traffic across the nation. Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled a total of 95 domestic flights Thursday morning, affecting some 24,200 travelers.
On Wednesday the typhoon halted bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka and caused the cancellation of nearly 900 domestic flights. Power was temporarily cut off to thousands of homes.
Tokage is a record 10th major storm to hit Japan from the ocean in a year.
With an 800-kilometer (500-mile) radius, it was the biggest typhoon to batter Japan since 1991 when the Meteorological Agency began classifying typhoons by the size of their storm zones.
The nine previous typhoons that have hit Japan this year caused a total of 102 deaths and left 13 missing and presumed dead.
10/22/2004 - 02:24 GMT - AFP