Four dead, thousands stranded as ‘unprecedented’ rain hits eastern Japan

 

TOKYO, Aug 14 — At least four people died in eastern Japan after “unprecedented” heavy rain that left thousands stranded at Narita airport overnight and snarled up roads and rail services, authorities said today. 

The torrential downpours late yesterday triggered landslide warnings and power outages, with forecasters issuing the highest-level heavy rain warning for the Chiba region for the first time.

Those killed included a man in his 60s or 70s found floating on a flooded road and a 66-year-old woman stuck in her submerged car, the Chiba Prefecture Disaster Management Office said.

The third fatality was a man of unknown age found collapsed on the street and the fourth a person of undetermined gender and age.

A fifth person was feared dead and a sixth unaccounted for.

As of Friday morning, close to 26,000 households across Chiba prefecture were without power, the disaster management office said.

A total of 45 houses flooded in cities like Ichikawa, Kashiwa and Sakura. Another 39 homes saw water seeping in below the floorboards.

A Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) official had told a news conference on Thursday that this was “shaping up to be an unprecedented level of heavy rain.”

Around 6,000 people were stranded overnight at Narita, one of two main airports serving Tokyo, with many trains to and from there cancelled until this afternoon, the Chiba disaster office said.

Users on social media said that airport staff handed out free water, food and sleeping bags.

“I never thought I’d spend the night at the airport but it is what it is and we are learning,” one stranded air traveller told NHK.

“We’re never going to forget this trip,” he said.

Hundreds of people were also left stranded in Chiba station due to suspended train services, an AFP journalist saw.

Hundreds spent the night in shelters in Chiba, NHK reported, showing cars in flood water up to their headlights in Kashiwa city.

“This happened all of a sudden so it was a complete surprise. The power is out so I’m worried whether I can open my business in the next couple of days,” a woman in Chiba’s Ichikawa city told NHK on Thursday.

The level-5 warnings of heavy rain were all downgraded to level-4 as of this morning.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather more frequent, prolonged and intense. — AFP