TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A powerful typhoon struck the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa on Friday, pounding them with torrential rains and high winds before heading north towards the nation's main islands.
A tree is uprooted by strong winds as typhoon Man-Yi closes in on Naha city, Okinawa, Friday.
1 of 2 Up to 500 mm (20 inches) of rain was expected to fall on some parts of Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu by Saturday morning, further battering areas already hit by heavy rains and flooding earlier this week, and more than 8,000 people were advised to evacuate.
Hundreds of flights were canceled and some 100,000 people left without electricity as Typhoon Man-yi bore down on the tropical Okinawa island chain some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo. Eight people were injured, though none seriously.
Twelve crew members of a Chinese ship were missing after the vessel sank some 600 km northwest of Guam in strong winds and high seas, officials at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles were quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying. Two men were rescued.
The Chinese-flagged bulk log carrier, owned by Fuzhou Haijing Shipping, was on route from Papua New Guinea to China when the cargo began shifting as the vessel encountered 113-km winds and 7-meter seas, the survivors were quoted as saying.
Man-yi passed near the Okinawa city of Naha and was around 80 km west of Yonaguni island as of 2:00 p.m. (0500 GMT), moving north at 20 km an hour, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. Watch an I-Report video of the storm »
It had winds at its center of 162 km an hour and gusts of up to 234 km an hour, slightly weaker than previously.
"This storm is moving rather slowly, which means that rain will fall for quite some time, especially in places like Kyushu," an agency official said.
The agency described the typhoon's speed as that of "somebody on a bicycle."
"Rain is the biggest worry with this storm. Given the rain that has already fallen in Kyushu, the chance of damage is high."
Television footage showed a car on its side in a Naha street having been blown over by wind, and cars plowing through streets covered with water. Electric poles were toppled to the ground, one crushing a car.
More than 300 flights to and from Okinawa were canceled, NHK public television said.
The storm, classified as a category 4 typhoon by British-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), was expected to increase the activity of the annual rainy season front and pound much of Japan with heavy rain over an extended holiday weekend.
Kyushu, where one man died earlier this week when he was swept away by a flooded river, braced for more rain and flooding.
A landslide cut one section of a road and people sloshed through knee-high water in eastern Kyushu.
"We had really heavy rain and thunderstorms at dawn," one woman told NHK at an evacuation center in the Kyushu city of Saito, a rural area where swollen rivers began to spill over their banks to flood rice fields.
"I want to go home. I'm worried about our greenhouses."
The storm could make landfall on Kyushu sometime on Saturday, though the Meteorological Agency said the possibility was low.
It is currently predicted to turn eastward, after which it will pick up speed and rapidly weaken, brushing close to Tokyo on Monday, a national holiday.
