Flooding in Japan forces evacuation of 860,000: AIR Worldwide

Flooding in Japan has forced the evacuation of approximately 860,000 people north and east of Tokyo, and about 100,000 people were ordered from their homes, AIR Worldwide reported on Thursday.

Torrential rainfall during the last several days – exacerbated by Typhoon Etau – has resulted in significant flooding, with “tremendous levels of damage to property and infrastructure” and widespread evacuations, AIR Worldwide said in a media release.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that two people have been confirmed dead, with 23 missing. Toyota Motor Corp. also reportedly halted day-shift production at three plants in the country’s northeast on Friday because of the rains.

Typhoon Etau made landfall late morning on Wednesday, Sept. 9 on the Chita Peninsula of Aichi prefecture and underwent extratropical transition as it passed over Honshu, Dr. Kevin Hill, senior scientist at AIR Worldwide, said in a press release. The typhoon exited Honshu into the Sea of Japan later Wednesday, and that evening became a post-tropical low-pressure system.

Nearly 400,000 people advised to evacuate Sendai, #Japan following torrential rains http://t.co/qa8wEtQVYU #Etau pic.twitter.com/kTrF9gIxOW

— Climate Nexus (@ClimateNexus) September 10, 2015

Dr. Hill noted that Typhoon Etau did not cause significant damage near the landfall location from wind or precipitation, but it has produced prodigious rainfall and flooding several hundred kilometers to the east of where it tracked across Honshu. Portions of Tochigi prefecture received up to 635 millimetres (mm) of rainfall over two days, with a large fraction of that rainfall occurring in one day, well after Etau had lost tropical strength.

“The nearly unprecedented precipitation – some areas of Honshu received twice their normal September rainfall in just 48 hours,” Dr. Hill noted in the release.

The rainfall has caused rivers to burst their banks and at least one levee to fail, resulting in numerous landslides and mudslides and widespread flooding in Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures. Boats and helicopters have been employed throughout the region to rescue stranded people, many from the roofs of flooded buildings.

Scenes of flood damage from Typhoon Etau, as seen on social media http://t.co/srzP4iJpzl pic.twitter.com/9FYZrOXdAm

— The Japan Times (@japantimes) September 11, 2015

Damage from the devastating flooding has resulted from myriad impacts, from houses submerged or swept off their foundations and vehicles engulfed and overturned, to uprooted trees, AIR said in the release. The heavy flooding also has overwhelmed the drainage pumps for the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, resulting in leaks of hundreds of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.

The heavy rain also prompted the cancellation of dozens of commercial airline flights and the suspension of some train service.

According to AIR, water damage to machinery and contents drives most flood-related loss. Although wind damage is typically automatically covered under standard fire insurance policies in Japan, flood damage is not, despite the fact that Japan regularly experiences “wet” storms that deliver extreme precipitation and flooding that contribute substantially to damage. Take-up rates for flood insurance are relatively low, AIR said.