TOKYO, JAPAN | Torrential rain battered Japan’s north-central Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures on Thursday, triggering flooding and landslides, closing roads and leaving residents stranded in inundated homes and vehicles as authorities urged hundreds of thousands of people to move to safer areas.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest Level 5 emergency warning for parts of the two prefectures, describing the situation as potentially life-threatening. Six-hour rainfall totals reached 211 millimeters in Himi, Toyama, and 210 millimeters in Hakui, Ishikawa, by 6:20 a.m., according to the agency.
More than 380,000 people were advised to seek shelter. In Himi, rescue workers used rubber boats to reach residents trapped by knee-deep floodwaters, while several vehicles were abandoned on submerged roads. In Ishikawa, at least 270 homes were flooded and landslides forced road closures.
The rain eased later Thursday and the warning was subsequently downgraded, but the weather agency warned that additional heavy rain and landslides remained possible through Friday morning. Up to 20 centimeters of additional rain was forecast for the Kaga and Noto areas.
Power supplies were also disrupted. Hokuriku Electric Power reported outages affecting more than 1,000 homes in the two prefectures, while several rivers overflowed and flooded residential areas, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara.
The disaster comes less than two weeks after exceptional rainfall in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, killed 13 people and caused widespread flooding. Japan has faced a series of increasingly severe rainfall events in recent years, prompting authorities to strengthen early-warning and evacuation systems.
Ishikawa is also still recovering from the January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake and the major floods that struck the region later that year. Japan’s Cabinet Office reported that the September 2024 rains caused 17 deaths in Ishikawa, flooded more than 1,000 homes and disrupted water and electricity services.
Japan’s weather warning system uses five alert levels. Level 5 indicates that a life-threatening disaster may already be occurring or is imminent, while Level 4 calls for residents in dangerous areas to evacuate. The Japan Meteorological Agency advises people not to wait for conditions to worsen before taking action.
Authorities continued monitoring rivers, unstable slopes and rainfall Thursday as residents faced the possibility of further flooding and landslides in the already vulnerable Hokuriku region.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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