More than 10,000 people have been evacuated as a precaution, hundreds of flights and trains have been canceled Thursday in Busan, a city in southern South Korea, due to Storm Khanun.
Accompanied by heavy rains and strong winds, the storm made landfall around 9:20 a.m. (020 GMT), which swept across Japan before moving south to the Korean Peninsula.
Then it should continue towards the north of the peninsula, said the South Korean meteorological authority.
According to the Yonhap news agency, no injuries were reported on Thursday afternoon.
Premier Han Duck-soo urged local authorities to ensure the evacuation of all residents of high-risk areas. For its part, the South Korean Interior Ministry called on the population to “refrain from going out until the end of the typhoon”.
Typhoon warnings have been issued across the country. Rainfall of up to 500 millimeters is expected in the northeastern coastal regions and 100 to 200 millimeters in and around Seoul by Friday morning.
The port city of Busan was hit by strong winds with gusts of up to 145 km/h. Many shops and cafes have closed. Heavy rains also fell in the capital Seoul.
According to the authorities, at least 330 flights were canceled by Thursday and sea and rail connections were interrupted.
According to the Ministry of Education, more than 1,500 kindergartens and schools are closed, have postponed class times or are offering online classes.
Tens of thousands of people who were camping at a world scout gathering in the south of the country were evacuated on Tuesday as a precaution. They had already been hit by a heat wave last week.
More than 40 people died in mid-July, in the middle of the summer monsoon, from floods and landslides.
In 2022, South Korea experienced record rain and floods that killed 11 people.
The government then declared that it was the highest amount of precipitation since statistics began 115 years ago and blamed climate change for it.
In Japan, the storm prompted some districts in the southern region of Miyazaki to declare full alert overnight, urging residents to “seek shelter immediately” due to the risk of snow slides. Mud.
According to state broadcaster NHK, evacuation notices have also been issued in parts of the Ehime, Kochi and Oita (southwest) regions.
As of Thursday morning, more than 10,000 homes on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu were still without power.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled a total of about 80 flights for Thursday, spokesmen for those companies told AFP.