Global Courant
TOKYO – Heavy rains in parts of Japan have left one person dead and two missing, authorities said on Saturday, with thousands having issued evacuation warnings and without power.
The flooding was caused by the remnants of former Typhoon Mawar, now downgraded to a tropical storm.
A rescue team in Toyohashi, the central region of Aichi, where the country’s highest evacuation alert was issued on Friday, “found a man in his 60s in a submerged car, but was later confirmed dead,” a reporter said. city official to AFP.
In western Wakayama, where several rivers overflowed, officials told AFP they had resumed the search for a missing man and woman in the region.
In central and western Japan, many evacuation orders — which are not mandatory even at the highest level — were revised downward on Saturday as the rain eased.
But new warnings were issued early in the morning in areas near Tokyo due to flooding risks.
About 4,000 households in regions near Tokyo experienced power outages, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said.
Shinkansen bullet trains were still suspended between Tokyo and Nagoya, according to Japan Railway, but public broadcaster NHK said they would resume around noon.
On Friday, government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno warned of “extremely heavy rainfall with thunderstorms” over a wide area over the next three days.
He said one person was seriously injured and seven were slightly injured.
Scientists say climate change increases the risk of heavy rainfall in Japan and elsewhere because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.
Heavy rain in 2021 triggered a devastating landslide in the central resort town of Atami that killed 27 people.
And in 2018, more than 200 people died in floods and landslides 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 temporarily knocking tens of thousands of homes out of power. AFP
