More than a million people in Japan were warned to leave their homes yesterday as an approaching typhoon brought heavy rain and floods which left three dead or missing.

Typhoon Roke, packing winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour near its centre, could land in central Japan today and move northeast, possibly towards the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the Japanese weather agency said.

“While keeping its strength, the typhoon could make a land fall on Wednesday,” an official with the Japan Meteorological Agency said in a televised news conference.

“We ask that the highest level of caution be used because of the heavy rain, strong wind, and high waves.”

The city of Nagoya, a regional commercial hub located near the home of Toyota Motor, issued an evacuation advisory to some 1.09 million residents at one point because of worries that rivers might burst their banks.

The advisory was lifted from parts of the city, but landslide, flooding and tornado warnings affecting over a million people were still in place as night fell.

A 65-year-old man in Nagoya fell to his death while fixing a stuck drain, Jiji Press news agency reported, while in neighbouring Gifu prefecture a nine-year-old boy and an 84-year-old man were feared to have been swept away by rising flood waters.

Water has poured into Nagoya’s subway system and underpasses, with television images showing pedestrians wading knee-deep in water, helped by firefighters with rafts.

The city asked for Self Defence Force troops to be deployed to assist with rescues, transport, and engineering damage.