Floods, landslides hit central Japan months after major quake

WAJIMA, Japan: Floods and landslides left one dead and at least six missing in central Japan, with rescue and recovery teams at work on Sunday in a remote peninsula already devastated by a major earthquake earlier this year.

"Unprecedented" heavy rains that lashed the area from Saturday began to subside, leaving muddy scenes of destruction as the national weather agency urged residents to stay vigilant for loose ground and other dangers.

In the city of Wajima, piles of splintered branches and a huge uprooted tree amassed at a bridge over a river whose raging brown waters almost reached ground level.

People were seen wading into the mud to try to dig out half-buried cars, while elsewhere flood waters inundated emergency housing built for those who had lost their homes in the New Year's Day earthquake that killed at least 318 people.

Eight temporary housing complexes were affected in Wajima and Suzu, two of the cities on the Noto Peninsula hardest hit by the magnitude-7.5 quake, which toppled buildings, triggered tsunami waves and sparked a major fire.

More than 540 millimetres (21 inches) of rainfall in the past 72 hours to Sunday morning was recorded in Wajima — the heaviest continuous rain since comparative data became available in 1976.

Landslides blocked roads, complicating rescue efforts, and tens of thousands of people in the wider region have been urged to evacuate.

Muddy rivers ran high in Anamizu, south of Wajima, where more rain fell on Sunday morning onto quake-damaged houses and the shattered stone columns of a shrine still lying on the ground months after they were toppled.

A message blared from the city's loudspeaker disaster prevention system warning residents that the rain could flood the sewer system and dirty water could rise up.

Hideaki Sato, 74, stood on a bridge holding a blue umbrella, anxiously looking at the swollen water of a small canal.

"My house was flattened completely in the quake," he told AFP.

"I now live in a small apartment room right there," he said, pointing at a wooden structure behind him. "If this floods, it would be a real problem."

'Secure your safety'

Military personnel have been sent to the Ishikawa region on the Sea of Japan coast to join rescue workers, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Saturday.

Some 6,000 households were without power and an unknown number were without running water, the Ishikawa regional government said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) downgraded its top warning to the second-highest alert on Sunday.

The areas under the emergency warning saw "heavy rain of unprecedented levels", JMA forecaster Satoshi Sugimoto said Saturday, adding "it is a situation in which you have to secure your safety immediately".

Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk posed by heavy rains, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

As of Sunday morning, one person had been killed, three were missing and two were seriously injured in Ishikawa, the fire and disaster management agency said.

At least a dozen rivers burst their banks and two of the missing persons were reportedly carried away by strong currents.

Another three people were missing who had been working for the land ministry to restore a road in Wajima, local ministry official Yoshiyuki Tokuhashi told AFP.

Japan's Kyodo News reported four more people were missing in Wajima after a river flood washed away four houses.

One worker who had been reported missing "walked to the tunnel" near a landslide where others were taking shelter, Tokuhashi said, adding that all 27 workers had now been evacuated to safety.

Municipalities in Ishikawa told 75,000 residents in the region — including in the cities of Wajima and Suzu, as well as Noto town — to evacuate, officials said.

Another 16,800 residents in Niigata and Yamagata prefectures north of Ishikawa were also told to evacuate, the fire and disaster management agency said.