TOKYO, Sept. 5 (CGTN) -- A powerful typhoon killed 10 people in western Japan and an airport company has started to transfer some 3,000 stranded passengers using boats from a flooded airport, the government said on Wednesday.
Jebi, or "swallow" in Korean, was briefly a super typhoon and is the most powerful storm to hit Japan in 25 years. It follows heavy rains, landslides, floods and record-breaking heat that killed hundreds of people this summer.
About 3,000 tourists stayed overnight at Kansai Airport in western Japan, an important hub for Japanese companies to export semiconductors.
Airport officials began transferring the stranded passengers to nearby Kobe airport by high-speed boats and buses on Wednesday morning, the government said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said about 300 people were injured. It is uncertain when the airport will reopen and some roads and train lines in the affected areas are still closed, he said. About 1.2 million homes are without power.
"The government will continue to do everything possible to tackle these issues with utmost urgency," Suga told a news conference.
Japan's JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corp shut at least one of its refining units at its 135,000 barrels-per-day Sakai refinery in Osaka in western Japan due to typhoon damage to part of the cooling tower, the trade ministry said.
Many chip plants operate in the Kansai region. Toshiba Memory, the world's second-largest maker of flash memory chips, is monitoring developments closely and may need to ship products from other airports if Kansai remains closed, a spokeswoman said.
It could take several days to reopen Kansai airport depending on the damage, the Yomiuri newspaper reported from an unidentified person in the airline industry.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was criticized for an initially slow response to the devastating floods in July but has posted repeated updates on the recent rescue efforts at Kansai.
Jebi's course brought it close to parts of western Japan. Those areas have been hit by heavy rain and floods and killed more than 200 people in July but most of the damage this time appeared to be from the wind.
