Rescuers yesterday combed the debris-strewn banks of a river in central Japan, searching for victims after homes were swept away in flooding and landslides that claimed at least six lives.
The river on the Noto Peninsula — an area still reeling from a devastating earthquake in January — overflowed at the weekend, becoming a muddy torrent that inundated roads and a remote hamlet.
After the skies finally cleared, police and firefighters from across Japan were joined by residents and the father of a 14-year-old girl who is one of seven people still missing or whose status remains unknown.
Photo: AFP
Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media outlets said six people were dead.
A fire department official said that one had died and five were in “cardiorespiratory arrest,” a term used in Japan before a feared death can be confirmed by a doctor.
Rain pounded the region from Saturday, with more than 540mm recorded in the city of Wajima over 72 hours — the heaviest continuous rain since comparative data became available.
The flooding disaster hit the area as it was making a fragile recovery from a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on New Year’s Day, which toppled buildings, triggered tsunami waves and sparked a major fire.
Floodwater inundated emergency housing built for those who had lost their homes in the Jan. 1 earthquake, which killed at least 374 people, the Ishikawa regional government said.
“I have to start over, through another cold winter,” said 76-year-old former sushi chef Shoichi Miyakoshi, whose wife was killed in a 2007 earthquake.
Yesterday afternoon, 3,700 households still had no power after the rain, Hokuriku Electric Power Co said. More than 100 areas in the region were isolated, with roads blocked due to landslides.
In Wajima, one of the cities worst affected by the Jan. 1 earthquake, dirty puddles and piles of branches covered the streets. Widespread evacuation orders were in place over the weekend, but several residents returned to clear the mud.
Takaya Kiso, the father of the missing 14-year-old, told TV Asahi and other local media that he hopes she would be found soon, as “I want to hug her.”
His daughter “was asleep so she wasn’t aware of the situation. She woke up because of my phone call. When she looked outside, it was like a sea, with floodwater covering roads,” he said.
However, when Kiso rushed back from work, the house was gone, reports said.
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