High waves batter a breakwater in front of houses at Yokosuka city. A strong typhoon crashed into the Tokyo region on Friday, September 9, 2007, bringing downpours and violent gusts that killed one person, injured dozens more and disrupted hundreds of flights, officials and reports said. [Photo: AFP]

A strong typhoon lashed Japan on Friday, bringing torrential downpours and violent winds that left one person dead, more than 40 injured and flooded hundreds of homes.

Typhoon Fitow slammed into the Tokyo region shortly before 2:30 am (1730 GMT), packing strong winds that also felled trees, smashed windows and swept people off their feet.

The storm hit Kanagawa prefecture, just south of the capital, in the small hours of Friday and was continuing to move slowly north with winds of up to 126 kilometers (78 miles) an hour near its centre, the meteorological agency said.

Its intensity was just a notch below that of Typhoon Tokage, Japan's deadliest storm in a quarter century that killed dozens in October 2004.

A 76-year-old man was killed in Karuicawa, a resort town north of Tokyo, when he was hit by a falling tree, an official said.

"The man was clearing off fallen trees at an acquaintance's house when another tree was felled and hit him hard on the head," said municipal crisis-management official Nobuhiko Kobayashi.

More than 200 flights were cancelled at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Friday, Jiji Press news agency said.

Signboards were seen flying on the streets of Tokyo as Fitow, named after a flower found in Micronesia, swept past the capital northwards.

More than 1,200 residents were evacuated from a Tokyo area near the swollen Tamagawa River as a precaution. Scores of fire-fighters were sandbagging the banks of the river as anxious residents looked on.

Public broadcaster NHK said the typhoon injured 43 people and flooded hundreds of houses in several prefectures by early Friday.

Seven passengers were injured by shattered glass as violent gusts broke a window of a commuter train in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, late Thursday.

Six children were also slightly injured when nine windows smashed at a hotel in Nikko, a spa resort north of Tokyo.

"We are so surprised. Children were scared," a hotel official told NHK.

In Shizuoka prefecture southwest of Tokyo, two men suffered slight injuries when their car was hit by a tidal wave that broke the windshield, a local official said.

Typhoons hit Japan in July and August, killing several people and injuring dozens.