At least ten people were killed and three other reported missing after a huge landslide triggered heavy rains in central Japan on Saturday.
Aerial footage showed emergency workers removing wreckage from two houses that were swept away in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo, just two weeks after a deadly typhoon barrelled through the area.
Advertisement
Nine people were killed by landslides and floods in the region, including two elderly men found dead in submerged cars, according to officials and news reports.
Amid the downpours, evacuation advisories were issued for tens of thousands of people in areas surrounding Tokyo as authorities warned of the chance of further landslides and flooding — especially in areas hit by levee breaks that haven’t even been addressed.
The Chiba police said that they received an emergency call on Friday, saying a river in the capital had flooded and a vehicle was swept away. A woman in her 70s was later rescued from an inundated vehicle uninjured.
Police divers were deployed to search for those unaccounted for, with public broadcaster NHK putting the number of missing at three.
At Narita airport in Chiba, nine flights were rerouted due to heavy rain, its operator said.
The Tokyo area was expected to get doused with 200 to 300 mm of rain by evening before moving north, the Meteorological Agency said.
Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis slammed into the east coast of Japan that killed more than 80 people . Many river banks and levees that were breached during Hagibis.
The Cabinet Office said that 3,864 people were still in shelters on Friday.
According to the welfare ministry, 9,733 households were without water.
