TOKYO (AFP) - The death toll from Typhoon Lionrock has risen to 17 in Japan, with several people still missing, and officials said on Sunday (Sept 4) a new storm threatens the country's south-west.

Two more deaths were confirmed on Sunday from the major typhoon which hit northern Japan last week, said an official in the hard-hit prefecture of Iwate.

The death toll is now 17, including the two confirmed on the northern main island of Hokkaido.

Now a new typhoon is bearing down on the country's main island of Kyushu in the southwest.

As of 4pm, Typhoon Namtheun was some 90km south-west of the city of Amakusa in western Kyushu, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The new storm is slowly moving northward with gusts of up to 126 kmh and bringing heavy rain, the agency said, warning of high seas, landslides and floods.

Namtheun is expected to hit northern Kyushu early Monday around high tide, the agency warned.

Lionrock landed on Japan's northern Pacific coast on Tuesday evening, dumping torrential rain over a wide area.

Overflowing rivers wreaked havoc, stranding many communities in the largely agricultural north.

The northern town of Iwaizumi in Iwate was the hardest hit. Nine people were buried inside a old people's home engulfed by a flooded river.

Before Lionrock, two typhoons had claimed at least two lives in Japan's northeast.

In 2013 a powerful typhoon that triggered massive landslides on Oshima island killed 40 people, while 82 died after a typhoon hit Japan in 2011.</s>The storm-battered town of Iwaizumi in Iwate Prefecture told all 9,947 residents to evacuate Sunday ahead of Typhoon Namtheum, which is expected to hit the area Tuesday.

The Self-Defense Forces used helicopters to help residents get to shelters as officials made efforts to prevent the town from being cut off again by a typhoon.

“We learned from the previous cases that damage is unpredictable,” said Iwaizumi Mayor Katsumi Date. “Even if it is ultimately unnecessary, I thought that we should act early on.”

Warnings were still in effect for strong winds and heavy rain as the death toll from Typhoon Lionrock, which struck Tohoku before rolling over Hokkaido just last week, rose to 15.

As of Sunday, Namtheun was heading north toward Kyushu, the Meteorological Agency said, noting that warnings for strong wind, heavy rain and floods had been issued for Kyushu.

The toll reached 15 after the body of a 57-year-old man was found in Iwaizumi, police and local government officials said.

Lionrock became the first typhoon to land on the Pacific coast of Tohoku last Tuesday, dumping torrential rain over a wide area. Overflowing rivers wreaked havoc, stranding many communities in the largely agricultural northeast.

Iwaizumi lost nine elderly people who were buried without warning in a care facility that was engulfed by floodwaters from a nearby river.

Days later, about 1,000 people still remain stranded in Iwate, a prefectural official said.

“We are dispatching helicopters to bring food and necessary items to the isolated areas,” the official said.

Lionrock was the third typhoon to strike the northeast in about 10 days.

The previous two caused at least two deaths.</s>Typhoon Namtheun made landfall in Nagasaki in the early hours of Monday, prompting the nation’s weather agency to warn of strong winds, heavy rain, mudslides and river floods.

After making landfall in the city shortly after 1 a.m., the typhoon moved over the northwestern part of Kyushu. At 6 a.m., it was about 30 km northwest of the city of Fukuoka and was moving in a north-northeasterly direction at a speed of around 20 kph.

The storm was packing winds of up to 64.8 kph with an atmospheric pressure of 1,002 hectopascals near its center, according to the Meteorological Agency.

Strong winds brought by the typhoon knocked a man down in Minamikyushu, Kagoshima Prefecture, leaving him with a minor head injury, according to the prefectural government.

Up to 150 mm of rain is forecast over a 24-hour period through midnight Monday in the northern part of Kyushu and Shikoku, as well as Nagoya and its surrounding region. In Osaka and its surrounding region, up to 180 mm of rain is expected during the same period, and up to 120 mm in Hiroshima and its surrounding region.

Meanwhile, the Iwate Prefectural Government said Sunday two bodies have been newly found and identified in the town of Iwaizumi in the prefecture, hit hard by downpours caused by Typhoon Lionrock last week.

As a result, 16 people, mostly in Iwaizumi, have been confirmed dead in the rain disaster in Iwate.

In the town, six people are still unaccounted for. The Iwaizumi Municipal Government in the morning instructed 9,947 residents in all 4,587 households to take shelter at six evacuation centers and a hotel in the town for fears that more landslides may occur due to possible heavy rain caused by another typhoon approaching southwestern Japan.

According to the prefectural government, 602 people remained isolated in 17 districts in Iwaizumi as of 6 a.m. Some 140 people were airlifted by Self-Defense Forces helicopters by the late afternoon.

Helicopter rescue operations for 198 isolated people in the Iwate city of Kuji were put off due to the bad weather.
The death toll in Japan from Typhoon Lionrock rises to 17 with several people still missing. Typhoon Namtheun is now threatening the main island of Kyushu.