A powerful typhoon that slammed into southern Japan over the weekend continued to move northward toward South Korea on Monday, after engulfing nearly all of the Kyushu region in a storm zone and prompting local authorities to urge more than 8 million people to evacuate across a wide area of the country.
On Monday morning, initial assessments suggested the storm had done less damage than feared, though hundreds of thousands of homes were left without power across much of Kyushu.
Typhoon Haishen has somewhat weakened overnight, with the Meteorological Agency downgrading the storm to "large and strong" on Monday morning, from "large and extremely strong" the previous day.
At least 40 people have been injured mostly in the Kyushu region due to the typhoon. A landslide occurred Monday in Shiiba, Miyazaki Prefecture, leaving four people unaccounted for and one person injured.
Officials had urged maximum caution and called on the public to be vigilant over heavy rain, strong winds, high waves and tidal surges. Days earlier, the Meteorological Agency had issued warnings for people to be prepared for the typhoon.
The agency also said it could have issued a special typhoon warning for most of Kagoshima Prefecture on Sunday morning, but decided not to after the weather system weakened slightly.
By Monday morning, around 476,000 households were without electricity, according to Kyushu Electric Power, raising fears of heatstroke for those left without air conditioning.
Evacuation orders and advisories have been issued for more than 8.59 million people from over 4 million households in Kyushu and the country's western areas.
The Miyazaki city government said some of its evacuation centers were not able to accept evacuees after they halved their capacities in a bid to maintain social distancing rules to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
To prevent flooding, the land ministry said it had released water at 73 dams in 11 prefectures centering on Kyushu and the country's west by Sunday afternoon.
The typhoon has also prompted the suspension of public transport operations. Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways suspended more than 300 flights, centering on those to and from Kyushu and Okinawa, on Sunday, and decided to halt more than 370 flights for Monday.
Kyushu Railway Co. said it will halt its bullet train and conventional train services on Monday and Tuesday, and will gradually resume them once safety is confirmed.
West Japan Railway Co. was scheduled to cancel Sanyo Shinkansen bullet train services between Hiroshima and Hakata stations all day Monday and reduce train operations on other parts of the line, affecting a total of 215 services and around 32,800 passengers.
The second typhoon to hit the country in less than a week has also disrupted economic activities. Major manufacturers that have plants in Kyushu and western areas, such as Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Sony Corp., decided to halt operations Monday to secure the safety of their employees.
Major mobile carrier SoftBank Corp. said its communication services were disrupted on Sunday in parts of Kagoshima and Okinawa prefectures due to power failures and malfunctions in cables connecting base stations triggered by the powerful typhoon.
Another carrier, KDDI Corp., also reported communication failures in Kagoshima and Nagasaki due to the ongoing typhoon and Typhoon Maysak, which hit Japan last week.
O  causou ao menos duas mortes no , além de deixar mais de 100 feridos, segundo o , que também reportou que há quatro pessoas desaparecidas na aldeia de Shiiba, província de .

A tempestade varreu o sudoeste do Japão, atingindo principalmente a Ilha , entre ontem e hoje com ventos que chegaram a mais de 150km/h. No distrito de Nomozaki, na cidade de , as rajadas de vento chegaram a 213,84 km/h. Também houve chuvas intensas, de 400mm/dia no vilarejo de Shiiba, Miyazaki. Centenas de milhares de residências ficaram sem energia elétrica na região e serviços de transporte aéreo e terrestre foram suspensos. Também houve o cancelamento das aulas. 

Depois dos estragos no Japão, o Haishen seguiu sua rota rumo à Península Coreana, onde atingiu com mais intensidade a Coréia do Sul, principalmente a costa de . Segundo a ''BBC'', 300 voos de 10 aeroportos foram cancelados e alguns serviços de trem foram suspensos na região.

Já o ''The Korea Herald'' reportou que dezenas de coreanos ficaram feridos, ao menos uma pessoa desapareceu e que um corpo foi encontrado na da praia de Haeundae, . O jornal também relatou que houve muitos danos materiais, interrupções no tráfego e cortes de energia numa área entre a ilha de , a cidade portuária de Busan e Gangneung, na província de . 

Os estragos do Haishen aconteceram apenas alguns dias após o Maysak atingir a mesma região. 

'''Você sabia quê?'''

* Geralmente os tufões que fazem esta rota, entre o sul do Japão rumo à Península Coreana, se formam ou se intensificam no , que entre junho e novembro apresenta condições climáticas adequadas para estes fenômenos, como a temperatura da água do mar em torno dos 30ºC?  
* No mês de setembro estas condições são ainda mais propícias neste mar?