Tokyo, 03 June, /AJMEDIA/
A man died and at least three people went missing after heavy rain pounded wide areas of Japan, local authorities said Saturday, with the weather agency warning of an increased risk of landslides and flooding of rivers in eastern Japan including Tokyo.
Thunderstorms were observed developing in succession from Friday through Saturday morning in western and central prefectures, causing concentrated heavy rainfall.
The severe weather conditions were caused by warm and moist air blowing from tropical storm Mawar, which is passing south of the country, and a rain front near Japan’s main island of Honshu.
The storm is expected to move eastward off Honshu later Saturday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Rising rivers prompted some local governments, such as 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 61-year-old 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.
In Wakayama Prefecture, search operations continued for a person believed to have been swept away near a river and another from a flooded road.
Many injuries were reported across the country, according to police and other sources.
At least 2 million people were temporarily advised to evacuate in Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi and Mie prefectures.
In part of the Shizuoka Prefecture city 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 agency said.
In the Kanto region centering on Tokyo, 47.5 mm of rainfall was observed in an hour in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, and 45 mm in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Saturday morning.
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 region of Tokai 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.
Services on the Tokaido Shinkansen line had been suspended on the section between Tokyo and Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture. Trains between Nagoya and Shin-Osaka stations were running about once an hour until around noon.
The company made trains available for stranded passengers Friday at Tokyo, Nagoya and Shin-Osaka stations. Some 5,300 people spent the night sheltering in the cars, it said.
Passengers who were forced to spend the night at a station or in a train looked exhausted after the experience.
“About 80 percent 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.”
