Takeo, Japan: Heavy rain made the majority of Japan on Sundays, sunken roads and buildings in the western part of the country, while three people were feared to die after landslides in Central Nagano Prefecture.
Most of Japan, especially the southernmost main islands of Kyushu, have seen the level of rainfall, causing the river to overflow and trigger landslides.
While the rain stopped at most Kyushu on Sunday morning, Tokyo and other parts of the country were pounded by rain.
The Japanese government will hold a meeting of ministers on heavy rain on Sunday afternoon, Kyodo reported.
In Takeo, a city in Saga Prefecture in Kyushu, the whole road sank as rescue workers in Arabola dragged rubber ships and surveyed damage.
Locals carry flying brooms and buckets and confusing knees in water.
“I’ve experienced three floods like this so far, but this is the worst,” said Toshimi Kusumoto, a 68-year-old doctor whose clinic was flooded.
Kusumoto waited for rain with his family on the second floor of his house, he said, located right behind the clinic.
The water reaches its house too, meaning that most equipment on the ground floor must be replaced.
His garage bends from shape, maybe from water pressure.
His son Daigo said their families were ready for flooding but were concerned about the frequency at which heavy rain stunned the area, and was considering rebuilding his home to raise the ground.
He has rebuilt a house just four years ago and has seen two floods already.
“It’s a bit if it’s often this time,” said Daigo, when he climbed the mud in front of the house.
In 2019, Takeo City was beaten by a destroyed record that killed three people.
The government at that time estimated that such flooding would only occur once every decade.
“But what can you do?” Toshimi said, with a little shrug.
Takayuki Haraguchi, 68, who worked as a guard in a local sports center, came to survey a brief damage when it rained on Saturday.
“It doesn’t look different from the sea,” he said when he remembered what he saw on Saturday morning.
He showed a car that had sunk in muddy waters and a vending machine that must be replaced.
Elsewhere in Saga Prefecture, 113 patients in a local hospital and 69 residents of nursing homes on the same site were safely evacuated to higher floors after flooding, said NHK public broadcasters.
Records from NHK showed hospital buildings and surrounding areas flooded water, which reached the top of the car tire parked in the hospital parking lot.
Three people, including a boy under 10 years, without vital signs after a landslide crashed into a house in the city of Okaya, in Central Nagano, while four people were missing in three other prefectures on Sunday afternoon, NHK said.