Typhoon hits Japan; 13 left dead, missing

TOKYO -- A powerful typhoon slammed into Japan yesterday, halting trains and leaving 13 people dead or missing in south-central regions before grazing a crippled nuclear plant and heaping rain on the tsunami-ravaged northeast.

The storm, packing winds of up to 100 mph, made landfall in the early afternoon near the city of Hamamatsu, about 125 miles west of Tokyo. The fast-moving storm went past the capital in the evening and headed up into the northeast, where it was losing strength.

Officials at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, where engineers are still struggling with small radiation leaks due to tsunami damage, were relieved that Typhoon Roke's winds and rain caused no immediate problems there.

"The worst seems to be over," a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said after the storm passed just west of the plant on its way north.

-- AP