One of the strongest typhoons to hit eastern Japan in recent years struck just east of the capital Tokyo on Monday, killing one woman, with record-breaking winds and stinging rain damaging buildings and disrupting transport. More than 160 flights were cancelled and scores of train lines closed for hours, snarling the morning commute for millions in a greater Tokyo area with a population of some 36 million.

Direct train service between Narita airport and the capital remained severely limited into the evening, with thousands of irritated travellers packed into a key transport hub for both the Rugby World Cup starting later this month and next year's Tokyo Olympics. "They simply had no contingency plan...," one weary traveller who lives in Tokyo said of the scene, in which people crowded the exit areas and food ran out in airport stores. "They let planes land ... and thousands of passengers were disgorged into an airport that was cut off - no buses, no JR trains.

Copyright Reuters, 2019