Typhoon Songda lashes Japan

A weakening Typhoon Songda lashed northern Japan with high winds and heavy rain yesterday after carving a trail of destruction in wide areas, with media reports saying 30 people had been killed and 19 were unaccounted for.

Hundreds were injured as the storm, one of the most powerful to hit Japan in recent years, advanced up Japan's west coast.

Damaged buildings included Itsukushima Shrine, a World Heritage site that is at least 700 years old. The Shinto shrine, partly built over water, is on an island in southern Japan.

Songda, the region's third typhoon in three weeks, was downgraded to a tropical depression around 3 p.m. (0600 GMT) after pounding wide areas of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, with winds of up to 108 km per hour.

Four bodies, thought to be Indonesian crew members of a freighter that ran aground and broke up, were found in Yamaguchi prefecture in southern Japan, Kyodo news agency said.

Another crew member was found but died on the way to hospital, meaning eight of 22 crew members have been killed with 14 still missing, it said.

In Hiroshima, southern Japan, coast guard officials found the body of a Russian woman and were searching for one more Russian crew member after their vessel crashed into a wharf, capsized and sank, killing at least three people, it said.