At least 17 people have been killed and another 50 are missing after Typhoon Wipha hit a Japanese island and swept on to Tokyo.

Hardest hit by the typhoon was Izu Oshima island, which is about 75 miles south of the capital where hundreds of homes were destroyed as more than 30 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.

In Tokyo a woman died after falling into a river and being washed away and two boys and another person were missing on Japan’s main island, Honshu.

The typhoon, which stayed offshore in the Pacific, had winds of  around 80 mph with gusts up to 110 mph, before it was downgraded to a tropical storm.

Izu Oshima is the largest island in the Izu chain south-west of Tokyo. It has one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, Mount Mihara, and is a major base for growing camellias. About 8,200 people live on the island, which is accessed by ferry.




As a precaution, the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, released tons of rainwater that was being held behind protective barriers around storage tanks for radioactive water. Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant’s operator, said only water below an allowable level of radioactivity was released. During an earlier typhoon in September, rainwater spilled out before it could be tested.