WAJIMA: After homes were washed away in flooding and landslides that left at least seven people dead, rescuers searched the debris-strewn banks of a river in central Japan on Monday for victims who might be drowning.
The river overflowed over the weekend, turning into a muddy torrent that flooded roads and a secluded hamlet on the Noto Peninsula, a region still recovering from a severe earthquake that struck in January.
Residents and the father of a 14-year-old girl who is among the seven missing persons joined police and firefighters from throughout Japan once the skies finally cleared. As of Monday afternoon, Ishikawa prefecture reported on their website that the death toll had reached seven, with one person critically injured and eleven people only slightly hurt.
Beginning on Saturday, the area saw intense rain, with the city of Wajima recording more than 540 millimeters over the course of 72 hours – the most consistent rainfall since comparable data became available. The region was only just beginning to recover from a magnitude-7.5 earthquake that had destroyed buildings, set off tidal waves, and started a large fire on New Year’s Day when the flooding tragedy struck.
The emergency shelter constructed for individuals who had lost their homes in the Jan. 1 earthquake—which, according to the Ishikawa regional administration, claimed at least 374 lives—was submerged by floodwaters. The 76-year-old former sushi chef Shoichi Miyakoshi, whose wife was slain in an earthquake in 2007, said, “I have to start over, through another cold winter.”
The Hokuriku Electric Power Company stated that as of Monday afternoon, 3,600 households were still without electricity due to the rain. Due to landslides, more than 100 isolated locations in the area had their routes shut.
