KANAZAWA (Ishikawa Pref.): Six people had been confirmed dead in Ishikawa Prefecture as of late Sunday after heavy rain hit the Noto Peninsula in the central Japan prefecture from the previous day.
According to the prefectural government, one person died in the city of Suzu on Saturday.
In the city of Wajima the next day, an elderly man was found dead during searches in and around the Tsukada River, while the bodies of two elderly women were discovered elsewhere in Wajima, police and fire authorities said.
Also in Wajima, two people found in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest near a tunnel on a national road were later confirmed dead. One of the two was a construction worker involved in restoration work on the road.
At the site near the tunnel, some people had gone missing. On Sunday, eight people, including construction workers, were found and sent to hospital. None of them were in life-threatening condition.
The prefectural government said that one person was missing each in Wajima and the town of Noto. In Wajima, searches were underway for four residents, including a junior high school girl, with whom contact had been lost following flooding of the Tsukada River.
All of Suzu, Wajima and Noto in the northern part of the peninsula had been severely damaged by the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that rocked the region Jan. 1.
On Sunday, seven more rivers, including in the city of Nanao, flooded, taking the total number of overflowed rivers in the peninsula since Saturday to 23.
Nine temporary housing complexes for quake victims flooded above floor level. Water supply was disrupted in wide areas in Wajima and Suzu, while many settlements were isolated as roads were cut off.
The prefectural government said that 1,088 people were evacuated in five municipalities including Wajima as of 4 p.m.
At 10:10 a.m., the Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded the heavy rain emergency warning in place since Saturday morning for Wajima, Suzu and Noto to a regular heavy rain warning. But it continued calling for strict vigilance against landslides, inundation in low-lying areas and swollen rivers.
The rain lashed many parts of Japan from the Tohoku northeastern region to the Kyushu southwestern region Sunday.
Rainfall over the 48 hours to 4 p.m. reached 498.5 millimeters in Wajima and 394.0 millimeters in Suzu. Over the six hours to 7:20 a.m., rainfall totaled 153.5 millimeters in the Kyushu town of Kusu, Oita Prefecture. All these figures were record highs for the areas.
JIJI Press