A powerful typhoon cut across Japan's southern island of Kyushu Sunday, leaving at least eight people dead or missing amid strong winds and torrential rain, officials said. A gust of wind blew an express train off the tracks in Nobeoka in the island's south, slightly injuring five of some 45 passengers on board, police said.

Some 100 people had been injured in Kyushu or elsewhere, the public broadcasting network NHK reported while several police officers confirmed at least 50 injured.

Typhoon Shanshan, packing winds of up to 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, made landfall near Sasebo on Kyushu's west coast shortly after 6:00 p.m. (0900 GMT) on its way from the East China Sea, the Meteorological Agency said.

The typhoon, which originated in the northwest Pacific a week ago, was heading toward the Sea of Japan (East Sea) at a speed of 35 kilometers (22 miles) per hour, the agency said.

The agency predicted up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) of rain in 24 hours.

"The train was running at reduced speed. Some people said there was a whirlwind," Takanori Kuwahata, a spokeman for the Nobeoka police, said by telephone, adding that three people were killed in Nobeoka due to strong winds.

"The entrance of a supermarket in the city was crushed by debris, knocking down a shell with three people underneath it," he said. One of them died after he was taken to hospital.

In the same city, a 42-year-old man was found dead in a crushed bedroom "littered with roof tiles and glass splinters" while an 84-year-old woman farmer was knocked dead by a fallen tree outside a greenhouse, Kuwahata said.

The storm had already injured 41 people in Okinawa, five seriously, a spokesman for the Okinawa prefectural police said.

Three deaths were confirmed Sunday in Saga prefecture on Kyushu's west coast, a day after they went missing in flood waters. The dead were a 41-year-old man and his 17-year-old daughter who died after a flash flood washed away their car, and a 49-year-old construction worker.

In Hiroshima on the main island of Honshu, the body of a 50-year-old firefighter was found Sunday after he fell into a swollen river overnight, a police spokesman said.

A 27-year-old journalist who had been covering the storm damage for a local newspaper remained unaccounted for, he added.

Source: Agence France-Presse