Heavy Rain Kills at Least 47 in Japan

July 8, 2018

Tokyo- At least 47 people died in eight prefectures mainly in western Japan as torrential rain triggered landslides and floods over the few days to Saturday, according to authorities.

About 1.93 million people in affected areas were subject to evacuation orders as of 11:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. GMT), and some 42,000 people were staying in shelters, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

The eight prefectures are Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Ehime, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Fukuoka.

"We recognize more than 100 cases in which people, including those hit by landslides, are in need of rescue now," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference in the morning.

Search-and-rescue operations were under way in affected areas, involving a total of some 48,000 police officers, firefighters and Self-Defense Forces troops, according to the top government spokesman.

Helicopters were mobilized to rescue people left in flooded residential areas. Many people are believed to be still missing.

In Hiroshima Prefecture, 19 people were confirmed dead. Two bodies were recovered from a house burned after being hit by a landslide in Higashihiroshima and what appeared the body of a woman was found in a river in Kure.

In the city of Hiroshima, the prefecture's capital, about 100 people were isolated in a mudslide-hit housing complex where 20 buildings were damaged.

In Okayama Prefecture, an explosion happened Friday night at a factory of Asahi Aluminum Industrial Co. in Soja apparently due to flooding, injuring more than 10 people including local residents.

Three workers were washed away in a canal in the town of Inagawa, Hyogo Prefecture, on Thursday, and one of them died.

On Nuwajima, a remote island of Ehime Prefecture, a house collapsed in a mudslide, leaving a woman and two children dead. In the city of Uwajima, multiple mudslides occurred, killing two people.

The Japan Meteorological Agency lifted special rain warnings issued the previous day for the western prefectures of Hiroshima, Tottori, Okayama and Hyogo, as well as the southwestern prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga and Nagasaki, by 6:10 p.m. Saturday.

Later, Kyoto also saw the warnings lifted, leaving Gifu Prefecture in central Japan the only prefecture where special warnings remained in place. Such warnings are issued when a once-in-decades disaster looks imminent.

"The situation is extremely serious," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a meeting of related ministers in the morning, calling for swift action to evacuate residents, help disaster victims and restore damaged critical infrastructure. Jiji Press