Rescuers are searching for people missing Monday after heavy flooding and landslides hit central Japan, killing at least seven people, local authorities said.
Rivers in the Noto Peninsula, a region still reeling from a devastating earthquake in January, burst their banks over the weekend, turning into muddy torrents that flooded roads and several towns.
The death toll has risen from six to seven following torrential rains in Ishikawa Prefecture, the local government said on its website.
Seven people are still missing, according to the source, which also reported 12 injured.
The Japan Meteorological Agency described “unprecedented heavy rain” over the weekend, with more than 540 mm falling in the city of Wajima, the heaviest continuous rainfall since records began in 1976.
Huge damage was inflicted in areas already damaged by the 7.5 magnitude earthquake of 1er January that killed at least 374 people.
As of Monday, some 3,600 homes remained without power, according to the Hokuriku power company, and many roads were blocked.
In Wajima, one of the towns worst hit by the recent earthquake, the streets are littered with puddles of muddy water and piles of branches.
Widespread evacuation orders had been issued over the weekend, but residents returned to clear the mud.
Takaya Kiso, the father of a 14-year-old girl who went missing in Wajima, told reporters that he hoped she would be found so that he could “hold her in [ses] arm “.
His daughter was asleep. “She woke up to my call. When she looked outside, it looked like a sea, with water covering the roads,” he said. And when Mr. Kiso rushed back from work, the house was gone, according to media reports.
“Out of a movie”
“Within about 30 minutes, water gushed into the street and quickly reached half the height of my car,” Akemi Yamashita, a 54-year-old resident of Wajima, told AFP.
“I was talking to other residents of Wajima, and they said, ‘It’s so heartbreaking to live in this town.’ I had tears in my eyes when I heard that,” she said, describing the earthquake and flooding as something “out of a movie.”
The massive flooding affected many homes, including eight temporary housing centres in Wajima and Suzu, where victims of the earthquake earlier this year still reside.
“I thought I was finally settled here and would have a warm winter,” Shoichi Miyakoshi, a 76-year-old former chef, told AFP. But “I have to start from scratch, spend another winter in the cold,” said the man who lost his wife in another earthquake in 2007.
Rainfall levels in Japan have reached record levels in recent years in several parts of the country, with floods and landslides sometimes fatal.
Experts believe that climate change is making these events more frequent, more intense and more unpredictable.