Sawt Falasteen - Floods kill two in Taiwan as twin storms approach Japan

Severe tropical storm Mekkhala was downgraded from a typhoon but still carried gusts of up to 108 kilometres (67 miles) per hour, according to forecasters.

Heavy rain has already pounded parts of southern and western Japan as well as Taiwan, where Mekkhala triggered floods and landslides across the island.

A 73-year-old woman died when she was swept away by floodwaters in Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung, and 49-year-old woman was found dead inside a submerged car in Hsinchu county.

A 65-year-old man was missing in Hsinchu after going to check on his farmland.

In Japan, four people have been injured and authorities have warned about risks of flooding and landslides.

Mekkhala was expected to skirt the islands of Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu over the weekend, affecting a swath of Japan including densely populated Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo.

The weather system was expected to converge with tropical storm Higos, which was also swirling further out in the Pacific Ocean.

That could result in the atmospheric phenomenon known as the Fujiwhara effect, when two storms interact, making forecasting their movements and strengths more difficult.

Local authorities in Japan have advised more than one million residents to evacuate from their homes, warning of potential landslides and other heavy rain-related disasters, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

"There is a risk of extremely heavy rain at warning levels," government spokesman Minoru Kihara told reporters.

"So far, we have received reports of one person seriously injured and three people with minor injuries" as well as flooding in dozens of buildings mainly in the southern region of Kagoshima, he said.

"We offer our heartfelt sympathy to all those affected by the disaster, and we will continue to gain an accurate picture of the damage situation," he said, adding the government is cooperating with municipalities to take "emergency disaster response measures".

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways cancelled a total of 120 flights to and from the southern regions of Okinawa and Kagoshima.

Officials in Kyoto and Osaka said water levels in rivers were rising, warning of potential floods.

Automaker Toyota suspended operations at a plant in Kyushu because of road closures caused by heavy rain, while Nissan also said it planned to halt some production lines, Kyodo News reported.

In Taiwan, more than 1,600 people were evacuated from their homes, and schools and offices were shut in several areas, while some train lines were suspended.

Authorities warned on Friday of potentially dangerous debris flows in mountainous areas of Taiwan's eastern Hualien county and Kaohsiung and Pingtung in the south, where the weather forecasting agency said as much as 88 cm (34.6 inches) of rain had fallen since Thursday.

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T.Khatib--SF-PST