Daily Times

Heavy rain across parts of Japan has killed one person, left three missing and injured dozens more, authorities said Saturday, with thousands of residents issued evacuation warnings.

The inundation has been caused by the remnants of former Typhoon Mawar, now downgraded to a tropical storm. A rescue team in central Aichi region’s Toyohashi, where the country’s highest-level evacuation alert was issued Friday, “found a man approximately in his 60s in a submerged car, but he was later confirmed dead,” a city official told AFP. In western Wakayama, where several rivers burst their banks, officials told AFP that they had resumed the search for one man and one woman missing in the region.

Dozens of rescue workers also searched for a resident who could not be reached after his house was engulfed by a landslide in central Hamamatsu city. A total of six people were seriously injured and 29 suffered minor injuries as of Saturday afternoon, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. In central and western Japan, many evacuation orders — which are non-compulsory, even at the highest level — were being downgraded as rains eased.

Warnings issued in areas close to Tokyo in the early morning due to flooding risks were later lifted. With several cities including Aichi’s Toyohashi and Koshigaya near Tokyo reportedly seeing the highest 24-hour rainfall on record, the Japan Meteorological Agency urged residents to “be on high alert for landslides, overflowing rivers, and flooding of low-lying areas”. Some 4,000 households in regions close to Tokyo suffered power outages early Saturday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said, but the issue was mostly resolved several hours later.

Shinkansen bullet trains were temporarily suspended between Tokyo and Nagoya, but Japan Railway said they resumed operations around noon. Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in Japan and elsewhere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water. Strong rain in 2021 triggered a devastating landslide in the central resort town of Atami that killed 27 people.

The storm is expected to be downgraded to an extratropical cyclone later in the day after moving eastward off Honshu. The agency forecast as much as 120 mm of rain in the Izu island chain south of Tokyo, 100 mm in the Kanto-Koshin region, and 40 mm in the central Tokai region for the 24 hours through 6 a.m. Sunday. Central Japan Railway Co. resumed all bullet train services between Tokyo and Osaka around noon, after suspensions caused by the rain.

A sign showing delays and cancellations for bullet trains due to heavy rain at Shin-Osaka Station on Friday. | KYODO A sign showing delays and cancellations for bullet trains due to heavy rain at Shin-Osaka Station on Friday. | KYODO The company made trains available for stranded passengers Friday in Tokyo, Nagoya and Shin-Osaka stations. Some 5,300 people spent the night sheltering in the cars, it said. Thunderstorms were observed developing one after another from Friday through Saturday morning in western and central prefectures, causing concentrated heavy rainfall. Rising rivers prompted some local governments, such as the city of Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture, to issue the most severe flood warning to residents, calling on them to immediately move to safe ground.

In Toyohashi, a man was pronounced dead early Saturday after being found inside a car in a flooded field Friday night, police said, adding that the vehicle was nearly completely submerged. A house was destroyed by a landslide in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and a man believed to be a resident remains unaccounted for. Pedestrians walk on a flooded road in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, amid heavy rains on Friday. | KYODO Pedestrians walk on a flooded road in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, amid heavy rains on Friday. | KYODO

In Wakayama Prefecture, where several rivers burst their banks, officials said that they had resumed the search for one man and one woman missing in the region. A total of six people were seriously injured and 24 suffered minor injuries as of Saturday morning, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. At least 2 million people were temporarily advised to evacuate in Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi and Mie prefectures. In part of Hamamatsu, 497.5 millimeters of rainfall was recorded, while 490.5 mm fell in Toba, Mie Prefecture, and 419 mm in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, in 24 hours through Saturday morning, the Meteorological Agency said.

Record rainfall was recorded in some areas in the six hours through 9 p.m. Friday, with 291 millimeters falling in part of Tosashimizu, Kochi Prefecture, and 240 mm in Tahara, Aichi Prefecture. In the Kanto region centering on the capital, 47.5 millimeters of rainfall was observed in an hour in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, and 45 mm in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Saturday morning, the agency said. Bullet train passengers who were forced to spend the night at a station or in a train looked exhausted after the experience. “About 80% of the seats were occupied,” Kengo Kaku, 46, from Okayama Prefecture said after spending the night in a bullet train at Tokyo Station. “I could recline my seat only slightly. I didn’t get good sleep.” And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season. Earlier this week, Mawar — then a typhoon — passed just north of the Pacific island of Guam, uprooting trees and leaving tens of thousands of homes temporarily without power.