Floods in Japan: more than a million people called to evacuate, one dead and two missing – LCI

“More than 150 soldiers, police and firefighters have been sent to take part in the relief operations”, said the manager, Takumi Kumasaki.

“They are looking for missing people, while monitoring possible landslides as heavy rains continue to fall,” he then clarified.

Unprecedented flooding in this region, according to the Japanese meteorological agency (JMA). “Unprecedented levels of precipitation have been recorded”, Yushi Adachi, a JMA official, said at a press conference in Tokyo. Intense rains are also expected to continue for several days over a large part of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Beginning of July, heavy rains had caused a devastating mudslide in the seaside resort of Atami, a hundred kilometers west of Tokyo, which had left 23 dead and four missing.

In 2020, floods in southwestern Japan also left more than 80 dead and missing, while in 2019 more than 200 people were killed in severe flooding in the west of the country.

Scientists say global climate change is causing these disasters to repeat, due to a warmer atmosphere retaining more water, increasing the risk and intensity of extreme precipitation.