Japan floods: Seven dead, many missing as rain continues over northern Kyushu

Updated

Severe flooding in the southern Japanese island of Kyushu has claimed seven lives, with rescuers still working to get food and medical supplies to more than 1,000 people left stranded.

More than 12,000 personnel have been conscripted to help with the relief effort, digging through piles of splintered wood and mud in the wake of freak rains that forced nearly 80,000 from their homes.

This number was down from more than 400,000 at the peak of the rains, with tens of thousands more advised to leave their homes.

The Government said seven people had died and more than 20 remained unaccounted for as rain continued to fall over northern Kyushu on Friday, amid warnings of further landslides.

Parts of Fukuoka, on the south-western island of Kyushu, were hit by 593 millimetres of rain in the 48 hours to 9:00am on Friday (local time), well over the rainfall of a usual July, the meteorological agency said.

"At first, it wasn't raining that much," said Sumie Umeyo, a resident of Asakura in south-central Fukuoka.

"But they spoke of record-breaking rain and it started raining heavily, then they began closing the roads.

"We looked outside and the roads were like rivers."

About 500 people were rescued yesterday when rivers across the region broke their banks and landslides cut off roads.

They said 1,100 people were still isolated on Friday and that Japan's military was transporting food and medical supplies wherever they could.

Heavy rain continued to fall, shifting to the northern part of Kyushu, although emergency rain warnings were lifted.

Large boulders and uprooted trees littered the landscape as thousands of soldiers, police officers and firefighters waded through debris and mud to reach several hundred people cut off by landslides.

Fukuoka and neighbouring Oita, the hardest hit by the rain, are both largely rural prefectures but rivers were also rising in the city of Kitakyushu, which has a population of some 950,000, and issued evacuation orders for several districts.

The rain was caused by a low pressure area over the Pacific that fed warm, moist air into Japan's seasonal rainy front.

ABC/Reuters

Topics: floods, disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, weather, japan, asia

First posted</s>TOKYO. – At least two people have been killed and about 20 others are missing in huge floods that are surging through southern Japan, with hundreds of thousands of people ordered or urged to flee.

Unprecedented torrential rain has caused rivers to burst their banks, sweeping away roads and houses, and destroying schools.

Thousands of soldiers and others were scrambling Thursday to reach people cut off by torrents of swirling water or threatened by landslides, and had rescued 250 people, the government said.

“We are in an extremely serious situation,” Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said, warning of the danger of collapsing hillsides and adding “many people are still missing”.

More than 50 centimetres of rain deluged parts of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, over 12 hours on Wednesday, the meteorological agency said.

Downpours will likely continue through today, the agency said as the region grapples with the aftermath of a typhoon that raked the country this week.

Authorities lifted “special” heavy rain warnings for the hardest hit prefectures of Fukuoka and Oita, although other warnings, such as for rain, landslides and flooding, remained in place.

One man was found dead in the city of Asakura in Fukuoka prefecture, while another died in a landslide in Hita in Oita prefecture, officials said.

Japan is deploying 7 800 police, rescue personnel and troops in affected areas of Kyushu, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, telling reporters that “there are about 20 people who are unaccounted for”.

Those included a child reportedly carried off by a fast-flowing river and a couple who had not been seen since their house was swept away. – AFP.</s>Search and rescue operations continued Thursday as torrential rain devastated parts of Kyushu. One person was confirmed dead and at least 11 others are missing following massive flooding and mudslides.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Japan Times.</s>TOKYO (Sputnik) — Thousands of soldiers and police have been mobilized on the Japanese island of Kyushu after heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks washing homes and people away, the top government speaker said Thursday.

“Since this morning, 7,500 personnel from the Self-Defense Forces, firefighters and police have been deployed to the scene. Over 40 helicopters are on standby,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at an emergency press briefing.</s>Troops worked Thursday to rescue hundreds of people stranded by flooding in southern Japan. At least two people were found dead and nearly 20 were still unaccounted for in flooding that wrecked homes, roads and rice terraces.

Heavy rain warnings were in effect for much of the southern main island of Kyushu after Typhoon Nanmadol swept across Japan earlier in the week.

Authorities in Fukuoka on Kyushu said six people were injured, two of them seriously. One man was found dead after he was covered by a mudslide. Four others were missing and feared dead in the city after being swept away by floodwaters or buried underneath mudslides.

In neighboring Oita prefecture, where rivers also overflowed, a 43-year-old man dug up from a mudslide was pronounced dead, according to the Oita prefecture. Public broadcaster NHK said he was a rescue worker.

Four people were missing in Fukuoka, while 15 others were still unaccounted for in neighboring Oita, according to prefectural disaster management websites.

Hundreds of people were trapped in areas by the floodwater, Kyodo News reported.

In one of the worst-hit towns, Asakura in Fukuoka, a man managed a narrow escape when a landslide crushed his home on a steep mountain slope, NHK said.

"I heard smashing and banging in the house, windows shattering, then floodwater gushed into the house, furniture floating around," said Tsunemichi Motomatsu, who runs a liquor store with his wife.

"We struggled for life and somehow got out. Now I feel it's a miracle both of us are still alive," Motomatsu told NHK, pointing to his house, collapsed and half-buried in the mud.

Television footage showed rice fields and homes flooded after a river overflowed its banks, dragging vehicles into the riverbed and destroying dozens of buildings as well as roads and bridges. Soldiers waded gingerly through floodwaters, carrying an elderly man to safety and evacuating families using inflatable boats.

Many trees washed down from mountains were floating in flooded fields or blocking roads. Homes were without electricity, train operations were suspended and parts of highways closed. Classes at dozens of schools, including those used as shelters, were canceled Thursday.

Nearly 600,000 people were ordered or advised to evacuate in Fukuoka, but only a fraction of them did, in part because the heavy rain worsened during the night. Only about 1,800 people had sought refuge in schools and other public facilities as of early Thursday, according to the prefecture's disaster management website. In Oita, more than 270,000 people were subject to evacuation.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said Fukuoka and Oita were experiencing unprecedented amounts of rain.</s>Troops were working Thursday to rescue families left stranded by flooding in southern Japan triggered by heavy rains. A 93-year-old man was found dead and several people were unaccounted for in flooding that wrecked homes, roads and rice terraces.

At least four people were unaccounted for and three were injured as of early Thursday, according to authorities in Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu.

Heavy rain warnings were in effect for much of Kyushu after Typhoon Nanmadol swept across Japan earlier in the week.

The man who died was likely swept away by flooding, police said. His body was found Wednesday washed up in Asakita in Hiroshima prefecture, which is on the main island of Honshu.

Television footage showed rice fields and homes flooded after a river swollen by the rains overflowed its banks, dragging vehicles into the riverbed and destroying dozens of buildings as well as roads and bridges. Soldiers could be seen gingerly walking through flood waters, carrying an elderly man to safety, and evacuating families using inflatable boats.

Rivers also flooded in nearby Oita, Ryutaro Fukui, a crisis management official in the city of Hita, told public broadcaster NHK.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said Fukuoka and Oita were experiencing unprecedented amounts of rain.

Tens of thousands of people were instructed to evacuate though only a fraction of those advised to leave actually did, according to the local disaster management agency’s website. It said 1,700 people had sought refuge in schools and other public facilities in Fukuoka as of early Thursday.
Severe flooding on the Japanese island of Kyushu has caused seven deaths with twenty people unaccounted for.