Record rainfall in Yamagata and Akita prefectures has caused at least one death along with a missing police officer found showing no signs of life, and numerous flooded houses from overflowing rivers. 

One other police officer remains unaccounted for along with another person missing in a landslide.

Yamagata Prefecture marked the highest 24-hour precipitation total in recorded history at six locations, including 389.0 millimeters in Shinjo city and 384.0 mm in Mamurogawa town.

As the peak of the rainfall had passed, the Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded a special heavy rainfall warning issued to seven municipalities in Yamagata Prefecture to a heavy rainfall warning at 5:50 a.m. on July 26.

However, the danger of flooding and landslides remains high, and the JMA urges the public to maintain vigilance.

Operation of the Yamagata Shinkansen and some sections of local lines has been suspended throughout July 26. Parts of expressways and national roads have also been closed.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a policy meeting on the morning of July 26, “Flooding of the Mogamigawa river and other major damage have occurred mainly in the Tohoku region and some people are unaccounted for.”

Kishida said the central government “will continue to gather information and take all possible measures.”

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a news conference that as of 7 a.m., reports had been received of three people unaccounted for and one person slightly injured. The body of one of the three people missing was later found and another person reported missing.

Hayashi also said at least 17 houses were flooded above floor level and 27 house flooded below floor level.

Hayashi said the Self-Defense Forces have been dispatched to the affected areas and were conducting lifesaving and rescue activities with local police and fire departments.

“We will work closely with the affected local governments and do our utmost to ascertain damage information and implement emergency disaster response measures,” Hayashi said.

OFFICERS MISSING

In Shinjo city, Yamagata Prefecture, one of two police officers who were engaged in rescue operations and went missing has been found in a state of cardiac arrest.

According to the prefectural police, two male officers, both in their 20s, who belong to the Shinjo Police Station, were in a patrol car near the Nittagawa river responding to a call that a car had been washed away at around 11:20 p.m. on July 25.

At around 11:45 p.m., one of the officers made an emergency call to report that their patrol car had been swept away.

The two have since been out of contact, prefectural police said.

On the morning of July 26, firefighters found four vehicles in the flooded rice paddies nearby, including a police car that had overturned.

Each of the other three vehicles had one male driver, but all three men were rescued early on July 26.

The search for the other missing police officer is continuing. There was a report of another person missing in a landslide in the prefecture. 

STRANDED OVERNIGHT

The rain also flooded a care facility in the city, leaving 37 people isolated.

A staff member said that everyone at the facility was evacuated to the second floor and was safe.

“The continuous rain raised the water level to the point where the parking lot was waist-deep in water,” the staffer recalled. “At midnight, the water came up to the first floor, so we evacuated the residents to the second floor. We all spent the night huddled together and anxious.”

In Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, the Kyodengawa river overflowed its banks, flooding residential areas along the river and leaving the residents cut off. 

A 70-year-old man failed to escape and was rescued on the morning of July 26, along with his wife, 68, and mother, 89, in a boat by firefighters.

“The water rose during the night, submerging the area around our house to a depth of 30 centimeters,” he recalled.

“We should have fled sooner,” he said, expressing relief.

A 68-year-old man said water began to back up from the drainage channel leading to the Kyodengawa river on the evening of July 25, and the water flooded homes and farmland from midnight to morning.

The water reached a depth of about 1 meter in some places, he said.

“I have never experienced water rising this high,” the man said.

BODY OF MISSING MAN FOUND

Damage from the heavy rain have been reported across Akita Prefecture as well.

In the prefectural capital, searchers found the body of a 86-year-old man who went missing after visiting his relative on his bicycle.

Police and fire officials began searching from the morning of July 26, suspecting that he had been swept away by the swollen Omonogawa river.

They found the man's bicycle on the embankment road of the river and his helmet was found floating in the water near the sluice gate.