Typhoon pummels South Korea, ship missing at sea

A powerful typhoon ripped through South Korea's southern and eastern coasts with tree-snapping winds and flooding rains on Thursday, knocking out power to over 270,000 homes and leaving at least one person dead.

Typhoon Maysak had weakened to a tropical storm that was east of North Korea around midday, South Korea's weather agency said.

Footage from Yonhap showed trees blown over streets and metal signs and poles mangled. One buoy blew ashore on Haeundae beach.

As of Thursday morning, officials have managed to restore electricity to about 199,400 of the 278,600 homes that lost power. The outages were mainly in southern mainland regions including Busan and the southern resort island of Jeju.

Elsewhere in Japan, the coast guard was searching for a livestock ship carrying 42 crew members and 5,800 cows that made a distress call off a southern Japanese island in seas roughened by the typhoon early Wednesday.

A Filipino crew member rescued late Wednesday said the ship capsized before sinking, according to the coast guard.

As a typhoon, Maysak packed maximum winds of 90 mph (145 kph) as it barreled through South Korea early Thursday.

Over 2,400 South Koreans evacuated their homes due to the typhoon, which damaged or flooded dozens of homes and vehicles, ripped off signboards and toppled scores of trees, utility poles and lampposts. A woman in the southern city of Busan died after being injured by shattered window glass.

Four nuclear power reactors near Busan automatically shut down because of electricity supply issues, but no leak of radioactive materials was detected, South Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety said.

More than 950 domestic flights were canceled while rail services in some southern and eastern regions were halted due to safety concerns.

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