Typhoon Dujuan Buries Tokyo Suburbs Alive: 6 Dead, 6 Missing as Landslides Swallow Homes
A record-shattering deluge sent hillsides crashing into Kanagawa and Chiba neighborhoods near Tokyo, killing at least six people and leaving six more buried or missing as nearly 2 million residents were told to flee.
Typhoon Dujuan tore past Tokyo this week and left behind a trail of collapsed hillsides, flooded rail stations and buried homes, with Japanese officials confirming at least six deaths and six people still unaccounted for as rescue crews dug through mud on Tuesday.
The storm made its closest approach to the capital late Monday, driving sustained winds of roughly 81 mph and dumping what the Japan Meteorological Agency called record-breaking rain on the region. Oshima, in Tokyo's Izu Islands, recorded nearly 24 inches of rain in a single 24-hour stretch — a new September record for the site — while parts of Chiba Prefecture took on more than a foot of water in hours, according to UPI.
In Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, a 64-year-old woman was killed when a landslide engulfed her home; an elderly couple remains missing after a separate slide struck a nearby house. In Miura, a woman in her 20s was trapped in a mud-filled first-floor apartment, and a second woman went missing in another slide. A man died in Sodegaura, Chiba, while working to clear landslide debris from a road. Most of the roughly 470 damaged buildings and the ongoing search operations are concentrated in Kanagawa and Chiba, the prefectures flanking Tokyo Bay, per South China Morning Post reporting.
A capital region under Level 5 warning
The Japan Meteorological Agency took the rare step of issuing Level 5 "special warnings" — its highest alert level — for landslide danger in Oshima and several Chiba municipalities, including Kimitsu, Sodegaura and Ichihara, as reported by The Watchers.
A disaster might already have occurred within designated landslide-hazard areas. Residents should take immediate action to protect their lives.
Nearly 2 million residents across Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and neighboring prefectures were urged to evacuate, though Japan's advisories are not legally mandatory. More than 58,000 households lost power at the storm's peak, hundreds of flights were grounded, and floodwaters up to three-and-a-half feet deep swamped the area around JR Sakura Station in Chiba, halting rail service into a second day, according to weather.com.
Dujuan was weakening into an extratropical system Tuesday as it pulled away from Japan, but forecasters warned the danger was far from over. Saturated hillsides and swollen rivers across Kanagawa, Chiba, Ibaraki, Yamanashi and Shizuoka remain primed to slide even after the rain stops, and search teams — police, firefighters and Self-Defense Force personnel — are racing to reach the six people still missing before conditions worsen again.