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Record overnight rain inundated Chiba, killing five people and stranding thousands. The disruption exposed the scale of extreme weather risks around Tokyo's transport hubs.
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Tokyo,UPDATED: Aug 14, 2026 15:26 IST
Record-breaking overnight rain in areas east of Tokyo left at least five people dead and one missing, flooded roads and dozens of homes, stranded thousands of people and caused power cuts, officials said on Friday.
Japan's Meteorological Agency downgraded its highest warning for heavy rain in more than a dozen municipalities in Chiba prefecture after the rain eased on Friday morning, but said more rain was expected later in the day. Photos and television footage after daybreak showed homes, cars and parts of railway tracks submerged in muddy water.
The Ground Self-Defense Force said it sent buses to pick up about 4,000 stranded people who had stayed overnight at Soga train station, on a local line that also serves Tokyo Disney. The operation was completed later on Friday. The theme park did not report any damage.
Thousands of people who were stranded overnight at Narita airport, which serves the Tokyo region, gradually left after train services partially resumed on Friday morning, though delays continued. Flights to and from Narita were operating normally on Friday, with many people returning home at the end of Japan's Bon Buddhist holiday week. Hundreds of people also took shelter overnight at the Chiba prefectural government building.
Chiba prefecture said five people were found dead and one person was missing. The dead included a man found floating on a flooded road in Ichikawa city and a woman who had been trapped in a flooded car in Sakura city. Two others were presumed dead after being pulled from flooded cars in Kashiwa city and in Chiba. Officials said more than 170 homes were flooded in the prefecture and over 300 people were staying at public facilities as of Friday afternoon.
The torrential rain and flooding also cut power to about 18,000 homes on Friday morning, down from 68,000 earlier, according to TEPCO Power Grid. A record 11.5 centimetres of rain fell in just one hour in Chiba City, while Sakura received a record 9.7 centimetres in an hour. JMA forecast official Takuya Hosomi said at a televised emergency news conference that unprecedented levels of rainfall had been recorded, underscoring the scale of the flooding and disruption across Chiba.
With PTI Inputs
- Ends
Published By:
India Today Web Desk
Published On:
Aug 14, 2026 15:26 IST
