TOKYO — Record-breaking rainfall flooded cities east of Tokyo overnight, killing at least five people, injuring over two dozen others and stranding thousands, authorities said Friday. As the deluge subsided, the Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded its most severe heavy-rain warning in more than a dozen municipalities in the prefecture of Chiba while forecasting more rain later Friday. The prefecture saw unprecedented rainfall levels Thursday, with 1.5 centimetres (4.5 inches) in just one hour in Chiba City and 9.7 centimetres (3.8 inches) fell in one hour in the city of Sakura, JMA said. Photos and television footage showed widespread damage, with homes, cars and parts of railway tracks filled with muddy water. Roads and dozens of homes were also flooded and some areas remained without power. Chiba prefecture officials said the five deaths included a man found floating on a flooded road in Ichikawa city and a woman who had been stuck in a flooded car in Sakura. Two others were presumed dead after being pulled from flooded cars in the cities of Kashiwa and Chiba. One person remained missing, and more than 30 people were injured, including five seriously, they said. Meanwhile, the Ground Self-Defence Force said it dispatched buses to pick up about 4,000 stranded people who stayed overnight at the Soga train station, a local route that also serves Tokyo Disney, which did not report any damage. The operation ended later Friday. Hundreds others sheltered overnight at the Chiba prefectural government building. On Friday, thousands of people stuck overnight at the Narita airport serving the Tokyo region gradually left as train service partially resumed Friday morning with delays. Flights in and out of Narita were operating normally, with many people returning home at the end of Japan’s Bon Buddhist holiday week. Some 170 homes were flooded in the prefecture and more than 300 people took shelter at public facilities as of Friday afternoon, Chiba officials said. In the city of Togane in central Chiba, a landslide blocked a road. The number of homes that had lost power due to the torrential rain and flooding fell to 18,000 on Friday, down from 68,000 the day before, according to the TEPCO Power Grid. Massive rainfall believed to have exceeded the designed sewer capacity in Chiba’s urban areas, where large areas are covered with asphalt or concrete, potentially adding to the overflow of excess rainwater and caused extensive flooding, Koji Ikeuchi, a University of Tokyo civil engineering professor, told the Nikkei business daily. ___ Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press
