Workers clear away earth and sand from the tracks near Hinodecho Station on the Keihinkyuko Line in Yokohama's Naka Ward on Sunday.

High winds and rain force halt to train, air services.

Six people are dead and three others are still missing in the wake of the season's 22nd typhoon, which ravaged Tokyo and surrounding prefectures Saturday, police said Sunday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said it was the strongest typhoon to hit the Kanto region since the agency started keeping such statistics in 1951.

The typhoon's fiercest winds struck Irozaki cape on the southern tip of Izu Peninsula.

At 243 kph, the winds were the sixth-strongest ever recorded on the four main islands of the Japanese archipelago.

After making landfall on the Izu Peninsula at around 4 p.m., the typhoon tore across Tokyo Bay and drove into Chiba Prefecture before heading out into the Pacific Ocean at around 8 p.m.

Heavy rains suspended Shinkansen bullet train services between Tokyo and Nagoya for more than nine hours on Saturday afternoon.

About 170,000 passengers were affected by the cancellation of 127 runs. Services were resumed at around 11 p.m.

Local railway lines were also shut down throughout Tokyo and surrounding areas as landslides covered railway tracks.

One of the landslides struck near Hinodecho Station on the Keihinkyuko Line in Yokohama's Naka Ward at around 6 p.m. on Saturday.

In Tokyo, a landslide near JR Yotsuya Station covered the track on the JR Chuo Line, grinding to a halt the rapid service between Tokyo and Shinjuku.

Three trains carrying a total of about 900 passengers sat on the tracks for up to two hours.

Services on two other lines were halted when water submerged underground tracks at Azabu-juban subway station on the Nanboku Line and Bakurocho Station on the JR Sobu Line.

About 65,000 airline passengers were affected by the cancellation of 319 Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways domestic flights.

Seventy-four international flights, including cargo flights, at Narita International Airport in Chiba Prefecture were also canceled.

Forty-one other international flights were rerouted from Narita to Fukuoka Airport.

Four of the six people killed by the typhoon were residents of Shizuoka Prefecture, among them Sakae Suzuki, 80, of Izu; Koichi Yamamoto, 55, of Kamo; and Jinzaburo Yasuda, 72, of Minami-Izu.

All three municipalities are located on the Izu Peninsula.

According to police, Suzuki was trapped inside his house when it was destroyed by a landslide at around 4:10 p.m. on Saturday. Taken to a hospital, he died there at around 12:20 a.m. Sunday.

The typhoon registered atmospheric pressure of 950 hectopascals at its center when it landed on Izu Peninsula at around 4 p.m.

This was the lowest on record since 1951, indicating the typhoon was the strongest to hit the area since that year.(IHT/Asahi: October 11,2004) (10/11)