Floods in Japan | One dead and six missing

(Anamizu) Central Japan, drowned under torrential rains, is preparing to experience a second day on Sunday under the threat of floods and landslides that have already left one dead and at least six missing.

Muddy rivers are in flood in Anamizu, a town on the Noto Peninsula, where damage from the 1^er January that killed at least 318 people are still visible, AFP journalists noted.

A message is broadcast by the city’s disaster prevention system, warning residents that rain could flood sewer systems and wastewater could rise to the surface.

“My house was completely flattened by the earthquake,” Hideaki Sato, 74, told AFP, looking anxiously from a bridge at a flooded canal.

“I live in a small apartment now. If the river overflowed, it would be a real problem,” he added, pointing to a wooden structure behind him.

Local authorities had called on some 75,000 people to evacuate, calling the rains “unprecedented” as the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued an emergency alert for the region, which remained in effect Sunday.

The massive flooding affected many homes, including eight temporary housing centers in Wajima and Suzu, where victims of the 7.5-magnitude earthquake that struck earlier this year still reside.

In addition to flooded buildings, numerous landslides are blocking roads and some 6,200 homes are without electricity and a number have no water, Ishikawa prefecture authorities said.

In the same department, one person was killed, two others were seriously injured and three are missing, the regional government announced in a statement.

Maximum alert

At a road restoration site in Wajima, three workers working for the Land Ministry have also been missing since Saturday after a landslide, a local ministry official, Yoshiyuki Tokuhashi, told AFP on Sunday.

One of their colleagues initially reported missing had managed to “take shelter in the tunnel” where 26 of his colleagues had taken refuge before him, Tokuhashi said.

“The rescue operations were to begin at 5 a.m. (4 p.m. [heure de l’Est] Saturday), then they were suspended due to heavy rain, but are expected to resume around 11 a.m.,” he said.

In the region, around ten rivers are in flood, carrying trees and debris, often ending up blocked by bridges, as AFP journalists were able to see.

The JMA has placed Ishikawa Prefecture on high alert, warning of “fatal” dangers.

Satoshi Sugimoto, a forecaster with the agency, reported “torrential rains of unprecedented magnitude,” with more than 120 mm of precipitation per hour recorded in Wajima on Saturday morning, the highest figure in the area since records began in 1929.

The military, the Self-Defense Forces, has been called in to provide reinforcements throughout the rural region along the Sea of ​​Japan.

On Sunday, authorities in the prefectures of Niigata and Yamagata further north of Ishikawa called for the evacuation of 16,800 residents.

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.