Two men, trapped on an island in the middle of a river in Gifu, some 270 km (170 miles) west of Tokyo, were overwhelmed by raging waters and swept away, local police said. One was later rescued.

Typhoon Chata'an, which means "rainy day" in the Chamorro language of Guam, appeared to be living up to its name, dumping more than 450 mm (18 inches) of rain on some parts of Gifu.

The typhoon killed at least 39 people in Micronesia last week before tearing into the Philippines, where 27 people died in flash floods, landslides and car crashes caused by the storm.

Heavy rain warnings were issued in Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region, with the storm expected to draw closest to the Japanese capital late yesterday night or early Thursday morning, an official at the Meteorological Agency said.

At least a dozen homes in Ogaki, a farming and industrial city in central Japan, were flooded, their doorways partially submerged as men waded through murky, waste-high water, television footage showed.

"The characteristic of this storm is the rain. We haven't heard so much yet about damage from the wind," an official at the Meteorological Agency said.

Gifu officials have recommended that more than 16,000 people be evacuated across the prefecture due to the danger of flooding and warned of landslides caused by heavy rain.

A section of a 100-metre (328 ft) dyke collapsed along Gifu's swollen Nagara River, prompting authorities there to call for the evacuation of more than 550 people, a prefecture official said.

As of 3 p.m. (0600 GMT), the centre of the storm was some 180 km (112 miles) south-southeast of Wakayama prefecture, some 450 km (280 miles) west of Tokyo, and moving north-northeast at 30 km (19 miles) an hour, packing winds of 108 km (67 miles) an hour.

AUTO PLANTS SHUT, FLIGHTS CANCELLED

Japan's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp, said it had halted production at 12 factories because of the typhoon.

"Due to safety concerns caused by the typhoon we have decided to stop the second shift at 12 of our factories," said spokeswoman Hisayo Ogawa.

The company, many of whose domestic factories are located in Aichi prefecture, central Japan, said this would affect production of between 5,000 to 6,000 vehicles. It plans to make up the difference with extra shifts later on.

Some 99 domestic flights were cancelled by late-afternoon, NHK national television said.

Parts of the Tokaido Shinkansen "bullet" train line were closed, causing 120 high-speed trains to be cancelled and affecting an estimated 48,000 passengers, a spokesman for Central Japan Railway said.

The Meteorological Agency predicted rainfall of some 200 to 300 mm (eight to 12 inches) in central Japan over the next 24 hours, and 200 to 250 mm (eight to 10 inches) in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

TYPHOON NAKRI PASSES TAIWAN

Caution was also needed because the approach of the storm is likely to coincide with a high tide, which comes in the early evening yesterday.

"There will be a lot of rain and the winds will become quite strong, so precautions will have to be taken against this," the Meteorological Agency official said.

The typhoon was expected to head north along the main Japanese island of Honshu over the next two days.

Chata'an passed over the U.S. territory of Guam last Friday, uprooting trees and utility poles, after triggering landslides in Micronesia's Chuuk coral lagoon that killed at least 39 people and injured 100.

In the Philippines, the number of deaths due to flooding, landslides and rain triggered by Chata'an earlier this week hit 27. More than 24,000 people had fled their homes and sought shelter in evacuation centres.