As Typhoon Khanun Creeps North, Japan and South Korea Issue Warnings

As tropical storm Khanun made landfall off the southern coast of Japan and headed toward South Korea, airlines cancelled hundreds of flights and the government issued alerts on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of campers at the World Scout Jamboree, which was earlier battered by a heatwave, have already started to be evacuated from South Korea as a result of the storm, which has been downgraded from a typhoon.

On Wednesday, approximately 16,000 homes were left without electricity as torrential rain lashed Kyushu, an island in southern Japan.

The Kagoshima section of the island was expected to see heavy rain and a "surging" risk of "life-threatening mudslides and flooding," according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The system has been classified as a tropical storm by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center of the US military, with wind gusts of up to 81 mph (130 kph).

A spokesman for Japan Airlines told AFP that the airline on Wednesday cancelled 252 flights, impacting almost 25,000 customers. Over 10,000 passengers were affected by All Nippon Airways canceling 96 flights, according to a spokesperson.

Events celebrating the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki were forced to be scaled back and moved inside on Wednesday because to the weather system that killed at least two people in the Okinawa region last week.

According to a statement from Kyushu Railway, several additional regional commuter and express trains were canceled, and a portion of Japan's "shinkansen" bullet train service was also suspended.

Nearly 80 flights at 10 airports, along with dozens of ferry services, were canceled in South Korea, where Khanun was predicted to make landfall Thursday.

Seoul has raised its crisis alert level to its highest level, with the typhoon expected to have "a direct impact on the whole country" from Wednesday to Friday, said the interior ministry.

The presidential office was working around the clock on emergency typhoon watch, Yonhap news agency reported.

"We will do our best to respond to the typhoon, so that no human casualties occur, with thorough control and pre-emptive evacuation for the high-risk areas such as underground tunnels and riverbanks," Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said Tuesday.

Another typhoon, Lan, was meanwhile forming in the Pacific, with gusts up to 108 kph and projected by the Japanese Meteorological Agency to move northwest towards the main island of Honshu in the coming days.