Typhoon fades but leaves at least 11 dead in Japan

TOKYO - Typhoon Nabi faded into a tropical storm and headed out to sea on Wednesday after killing at least 11 people on southern Japan's main island of Kyushu.

Twelve people were missing and 91 were injured as Nabi drenched parts of Japan's third-biggest island with more than 1000 mm of rain, triggering floods and landslides.

Four people were also missing in South Korea.

Television pictures showed rescue workers and military personnel hunting for survivors in wrecked houses in southwestern Japan and people clearing mud out of homes, schools and other buildings.

Police said at least 52 homes were destroyed or badly damaged and about 6000 houses were flooded. Tens of thousands of people remained in evacuation centres, public broadcaster NHK said.

At the height of the storm more than 250,000 people fled their homes in southwestern Japan. About 100,000 households in the region were without electricity on Wednesday.

Floodwaters in many areas were drawing back by Wednesday morning, officials said.

"Although there are some low-lying areas that are still flooded, a lot of the water has gone down already," an official in Kyushu's Miyazaki prefecture, some of whose towns were particularly hard-hit said.

Nearly 300 people spent the night on a train in the western Japan city of Osaka after being stranded when the storm halted rail services. Flights were disrupted on Wednesday, with more than 100 cancelled but train services had resumed after being halted on Tuesday.

Japan's Meteorological Agency forecast that Nabi, whose name means "butterfly" in Korean, would travel northeast over the Sea of Japan, skimming Japan's west coast and hitting the northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday.

The agency warned of heavy rains, high winds and possible flooding and landslides across northern Japan.

Oil refiners, meanwhile, were restoring operations after disruption from the storm.

Top refiner Nipon Oil said it had resumed oil shipments by road and sea to its Marifu refinery on the southern tip of the main island of Honshu and Kyushu Oil said it had restarted shipments and its refinery in Oita, Kyushu, would return to normal operations later on Wednesday.

Chemicals maker Showa Denko also said its plant in Oita was operating normally after the storm.

In South Korea, which escaped the brunt of the typhoon, four people were reported missing and several hundred were evacuated after heavy rains and winds battered the southern and eastern parts of the country.

The storm dumped about 620 mm of rain in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan, causing landslides across roads and railroad tracks and snarling transport.

About 150 people in Ulsan remained in shelters, waiting for the water to recede in their neighbourhoods. Four thousand households were without electricity.

The country's two main airlines -- Korean Air and Asiana -- cancelled over 100 flights.

- REUTERS