At least six people have been killed and five others injured after record-breaking rainfall triggered severe flooding and landslides in Chiba Prefecture, eastern Japan, near the capital, Tokyo.
The torrential downpour, described by Japanese authorities as an “unprecedented” weather event, cut electricity to more than 20,000 households and left about 7,000 travellers stranded overnight at Narita International Airport.
Local authorities issued their highest, Level Five, emergency warning on Thursday as the rainfall intensified. The alert was downgraded to Level Four on Friday morning, although officials continued to warn residents of the risks of flooding and landslides.
Chiba Governor Toshihito Kumagai described the situation as extraordinary, saying the scale of the rainfall was unlike anything he had experienced during previous disasters.
“This case was an extremely unusual situation, even by Japan’s historical weather standards,” Kumagai told reporters on Friday morning.
“I have responded to many disasters in the past, but I have never experienced a case like this.”
Authorities said Chiba recorded more than 100 millimetres of rainfall per hour from Thursday afternoon, approximately three times the average rainfall for August and the highest volume of precipitation ever recorded in the country.
The Japan Meteorological Agency attributed the extreme weather to warm, humid air flowing into eastern Japan and colliding with colder air above, creating highly unstable atmospheric conditions.
The agency had earlier described the rainfall as being at an “unprecedented level” and warned that heavy rain was expected to continue until late Friday.
According to reports from Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Kyodo News Agency and the Asahi newspaper, at least six people had died in the disaster.
Among the victims was a woman who died after becoming trapped inside a car submerged on a flooded road. Two other people reportedly collapsed on the streets and later died.
Governor Kumagai said the authorities’ immediate priority would be saving lives, adding that rescue and emergency operations would continue as conditions permitted.
The torrential rain also caused widespread disruption to transportation and essential services. Several rail services remained suspended on Friday morning, while major highways were closed because of flooding and other hazards.
More than 100,000 households were advised to evacuate on Thursday after the heavy rainfall triggered landslides, flooding and power outages.
At Narita Airport, approximately 7,000 passengers were reportedly stranded overnight. Travellers were also left stranded at railway stations, while about 1,800 people spent the night at the Chiba Prefectural Government building.
Despite the disruption, a spokesperson for Narita Airport said all scheduled flights were expected to operate normally on Friday. Japan Airlines also said some flights could experience delays, although it did not anticipate cancellations.
Residents described the suddenness of the rainfall and its impact on daily life.
A woman in Ichikawa City, Chiba, told NHK that the rain came unexpectedly, leaving residents struggling to cope with the consequences.
“The rain happened all of a sudden, so it was a complete surprise,” she said, expressing concern about the continuing power outage and whether she would be able to reopen her business in the coming days.
The latest disaster comes amid an unusually active period of storm activity across East and Southeast Asia.
Japan, the Philippines and China have experienced a series of storms in recent days, including Dolphin, Chan-Hom and Peilou, which have affected large parts of the region.
Dolphin brought heavy rainfall to Japan’s Okinawa Island earlier in the week, cutting electricity to tens of thousands of buildings, bringing down trees and forcing the cancellation of flights.
In China, more than one million people were evacuated from their homes over the weekend as Typhoon Dolphin, described as the strongest typhoon to hit the country so far this year, made landfall in the east.
Meanwhile, authorities in the northern Philippines have again ordered the closure of schools and government offices because of continuing flood risks.
The succession of storms and extreme rainfall has heightened concerns over the increasingly disruptive impact of severe weather across the region, with authorities in affected countries maintaining heightened emergency preparedness as further rainfall is forecast.
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