INCONVENIENT
The holiday resort of Beppu in Kyushu suffered no major damage, but the typhoon left tourists stranded and bored, with the onsen hot springs, a monkey park and even 24-hour convenience stores shut.
“This is my first time (here). I was very looking forward to it,” morose visitor Nobuhiko Takagishi from Tokyo told AFP. “But it will be a trip to remember. A trip when I couldn’t do anything.”
“Tourists must be in big trouble. They came here with no preparation, and they are stranded,” said resident Hiroko Handa, 48.
Power cuts hit more than 250,000 Kyushu households but the utility operator said on Friday that only 5,250 were still without electricity as engineers repaired transmission lines.
Overnight, many motorways were fully or partially closed in Kyushu, as well as others further afield, media reports said.
Shinkansen bullet trains remained suspended in Kyushu and were also halted on the major route between Tokyo and Osaka, with operators warning of disruptions elsewhere.
Japan Airlines and ANA had already announced the cancellation of more than 600 flights between them for Friday, having scrapped a similar number the previous day, affecting almost 50,000 passengers.
Four baseball games due to take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the central city of Nagoya and Nishinomiya near Osaka were cancelled. Five J-League football matches slated for Saturday in different cities were also called off.
Auto giant Toyota said it had extended a production halt at all 14 of its Japanese plants, while a suspension at Nissan’s Kyushu factories remained in place.
