Record Rains Trigger Mass Evacuations in Northern Japan

There have been reported cases of residents having to be evacuated due to the floods that have been caused by the increased rainfall in the northern part of Japan; rivers have flooded and this has seen bridges and even cars being washed away. In regard to this, heavy rains have led to the death of one person and four others missing in Yamagata and Akita prefectures located on Honshu Island.

In Yuzawa City, a sexual miscreant in his mid-60s cannot be accounted for after the area where he was carrying out construction got lashed by a landslip. The last person is one male, an eighty-six-year-old man who’s missing and was last seen near the riverbank in Akita City. An Akita City has been discovered to contain a dead body. Yamagata, three persons, of which two were police officers who participated in the search operation, are still missing.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasted the record rainfall and the figures were accurate that Yamagata’s Shinjo received 389 mm of rainfall and Sakata 289 mm. Some clips depicted the floods sweeping a number of cars including a police car away.

Malaysia’s disaster management authorities have put the number of evacuations at over 200,000 and the number of people relocated to shelters at around 4,000. Around 3 060 families no longer have electricity and about 1100 residential buildings have no access to drinking water. Several motorways are closed and Shinkanshin bullet trains have stopped running.

Policemen and firefighters are still working hard in the effort to rescue the trapped persons while the military has been dispatched to Yamagata. JMA had put Sakata and Yuza on alert for heavy rain and issued the highest alert of emergency however has since toned it down a bit. Yet, the people are warned that they may expect further landslides and flooding occurrences. Downpour, with between 100–200 mm/day is forecasted to persist for the next three days.