Storm rips through City of Joso

The City of Joso, North of the capital Tokyo, was hit by a wall of water after the Kinugawa river burst its banks. Helicopter rescue teams plucked people from rooftops. Eight people are still missing and 100 needed rescuing.

The rains came a day after a tropical storm brought winds of up to 78 mph, 125km/h to central Aichi prefecture. The hardest-hit areas have been Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures. Japan usually get hit by 30 storms each year for the last 18years.  Entire homes and cars were carried away on the torrent as the Kinugawa river burst its banks after two days of heavy rainfall, as the flood water reached as far as 5 miles from the beach. In Tochigi, more than 500mm 19 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. The fire and disaster management agency said 15 people had been injured across Japan including two elderly women with serious injuries after being knocked over by strong winds.

Last month, powerful Typhoon Goni hit Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu killeing one person and injuring 70 others.