Typhoon Wipha is currently off the northeastern coast of Japan’s main island Honshu and moving north.  But it left a trail of death and destruction including a killer mudslide that buried part of an island town.  So far, 13 bodies have been recovered.

Heavy, drenching rain and hurricane-force wind conspired to loosen the soil on hillsides on Izu Oshima Island, a coastal island south of Tokyo. Officials say dozens of homes were destroyed, many of them reduced to splinters on their concrete slab foundations.  40 to 50 people are still missing.  Officials recorded 800 millimeters of rain during the 24 hours leading up to Wednesday morning – that’s more than twice the usual monthly rainfall for October.

Rockslides were a problem in other parts of the hilly country.  TV News showed a boulder that fell from a hill and stopped just short of crushing a home in historic Kamakura town, southwest of Tokyo.

Tokyo itself was sparred major damage, problems are limited to street flooding, trains delayed because of slight flooding in the subway tunnels, and the occasional downed tree.  As the storm moves north and away from Japan, officials will get a better idea of the devastation up the northeast coast – the same region hit by the earthquake and tsunami disaster of 2011.