(Bloomberg) — Typhoon Neoguri headed toward Japan's southernmostmain island of Kyushu, prompting the evacuation of almost 90,000people amid the threat of floods and landslides.

Neoguri was west of Kyushu with top winds reaching 148kilometers (92 miles) per hour, down from yesterday's 252 kph,according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The storm, whichwas heading east as of 7:50 pm local time, left 20 injured inOkinawa yesterday, where it grounded flights and promptedevacuations.

Parts of Kyushu will probably be hit by tomorrow with violentwinds, swollen rivers and waves up to 10 meters high, the weatheragency reported on its website. While rain brought bythe storm will generally amount to 1 inch (2.5centimeters) to 3 inches, some areas may get as much as 5 inches,leading to “localized flooding in higher terrain,” says CommodityWeather Group LLC.

“The storm is weakening just slightly faster andshould be down to tropical storm force winds, 55 knots(102 kph), at landfall in southwestern Japan in about 12 hours,”David Streit, a forecaster at CWG in Bethesda, Maryland, said in ane-mail received at 6:23 p.m. Tokyo time. “Winds will be down to 35knots when it passes Tokyo about 24 hours later.”

Officials in the Kyushu city of Amakusa urged 87,327 residentstoday to take shelter in gyms and other buildings being used asevacuation centers, as the storm threatened homes, publicbroadcaster NHK reported on its website.

Companies with Kyushu factories, including Nissan Motor Co. andToshiba Corp., were watching the storm's approach.

Storm Countermeasures

“We instructed factories and offices in Japan to take measuresfor safety against the approaching typhoon,” said Yu Takase, aspokeswoman for Toshiba, which has a chip factory in Kyushu's Oitaprefecture. “Right now, our factories are operating as usual.”

Nissan and Toyota Motor Corp. were monitoringthe storm and planned to decide on any countermeasures tobe taken tomorrow by this evening, the companies said.

Toyota and Nissan built 1.32 million vehicles at their fourplants in Kyushu last year, Satomi Hamada, a production analyst forIHS Automotive, wrote in an e-mail.

Nissan's two plants on the island accounted for 65% of thecompany's domestic production last year, while Toyota's portion was18%.

The storm's was expected to pivot east as Neoguri interacts witha low-pressure system over Manchuria, said Jim Andrews, ameteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.The low has created a vigorous westerly jet stream that will pushthe storm into Kyushu.

“The storm is clearly weakening,” he said. “We'rethinking more a minimal typhoon or a strong tropicalstorm asit crosses the southwest coast of Kyushu.”

Boat Capsizes

Japan Airlines Co. and its affiliates grounded 11 flights to andfrom southern Japan today as of 4 p.m., the company said in ane-mailed statement. The All Nippon Airways Co. group canceled 29flights, affecting 2,000 passengers.

One serious injury in Okinawa was attributed to the storm,while 19 other people suffered slight injuries, according to astatement from Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency, whichgave no other details.

The Mainichi newspaper reported that a man died yesterday afterthe fishing boat he was aboard capsized off the island of Shikokufarther northeast from the storm's center, where the weather agencyhas a high-wave advisory in effect.

In the Okinawan city of Miyako, residents who had been urged totake shelter from the storm in community centers andmunicipal buildings returned to their homes after an evacuationalert was lifted yesterday at 6:30 p.m., disaster preventionspokesman Satoshi Shimoji said.

Service Blackouts

Nansei Sekiyu KK, a unit of Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA,halted refining and shipping operations yesterday at its 100,000barrel-a-day Nishihara plant in Okinawa, the company said in ane-mailed statement.

Marine operations at JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp.'s270,000-barrel-a-day Negishi refinery near Tokyo remained suspendedtoday because of high waves caused by the storm's approach,according to a company official who asked not to be identifiedbecause of internal policy.

Customers of NTT Docomo Inc., Japan's largest wireless carrier,continued to experience service blackouts in some remote parts ofOkinawa, according to a map on the company's website.

Neoguri, which means raccoon in Korean, had sustained winds of102 kilometers per hour. The Japanese Meteorological Agency hasdropped emergency warnings for the area while maintaining alertsfor high winds, thunderstorms, heavy rain, strong winds andpossible landslides in parts of Kyushu.

“Heavy rains causing major flooding will be the main concern,due to saturated soils on Kyushu caused by very heavy rains sinceThursday from a stalled front,” said Jeff Masters, co-founder ofWeather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Storm Season

Japan has averaged more than 11 typhoons per year over a 30-yearperiod ending in 2010, most of them occurring between July andOctober, according to the weather agency's website.

“The strength of the typhoon is a once-in-several-decadesevent,” Akihiro Ohta, Japan's transport minister, told reporters inTokyo yesterday. “We urge people to pay attention to warnings fromtheir local governments.”

Andrews said the remnants of Neoguri may hug Japan's east coast.He said Tokyo itself will probably be spared the worst because itis sheltered by mountains to the south.

–With assistance from Kiyotaka Matsuda, Chris Cooper, ChengLeng, Lily Nonomiya, Taku Kato, Yuki Hagiwara, Craig Trudell and MaJie in Tokyo, Brian K. Sullivan in Boston and Isis Almeida inLondon.

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