Eastern Japan rain kills nine, local broadcaster reports

Heavy rain that battered eastern Japan has left nine people dead, public broadcaster NHK said Sunday, after an “unprecedented” deluge that flooded over a thousand homes and snarled up roads and rail services.



Torrential downpours starting late on Aug 13 triggered landslide warnings and power outages, with forecasters issuing the highest-level heavy rain warning for the Chiba region for the first time.



A weather station in the prefecture recorded 30cm of rain in 24 hours, making it the area’s wettest August in six decades.



By the morning of Aug 14, the city of Chiba logged more than three times the rainfall typically seen in the whole of August, Tokyo’s Land Ministry confirmed.



Chiba’s disaster management office at the evening of Aug 15 listed eight dead, some trapped inside submerged cars and others found on flooded streets.



More than 70 houses across the Chiba region were partially destroyed by the rain, the prefecture’s latest tally showed.



And over a thousand households reported being flooded, nearly 600 of which saw water surge above the floorboards.