Record Rains Cause Floods, Slides in Japan; 7 Die

Rescue workers paddled rowboats past inundated buses and homes Tuesday in central Japan to pick up residents stranded by floods and mudslides that killed seven people and forced the nation’s biggest car maker to stop production.

Rainfall totaling 23 inches was recorded during the preceding 24-hour period, the local observatory said. The record rainfall was expected to exceed 32 inches in some areas, the Meteorological Agency said.

In addition to the dead, 41 people were injured and two were missing in the floods set off by the torrential rains, the national police said.

Authorities in the industrial city of Nagoya told more than 360,000 people to evacuate their homes, city official Tadanobu Horiguchi said. Many sought shelter on the second or third floors of schools.

Among the seven dead were a 53-year-old firefighter, who fell into a flooded roadside ditch, and a 49-year-old man buried by mudslides, Horiguchi said.

Toyota Motor Corp. stopped production nationwide because of the downpour. Toyota and many of its parts makers are located in Nagoya, about 150 miles west of Tokyo, so work stoppages there affect operations in other areas.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. also stopped production at its two factories in Nagoya, company spokesman Isao Sakaibara said.

Torrential rains also cut power to bullet trains, forcing about 50,000 passengers to spend the night at railway stations or in stalled trains.

Services resumed in the afternoon after a record interruption of more than 18 hours.

Fourteen homes were demolished by landslides, and more than 12,000 were flooded, police said.

More violent weather was on the way, with Typhoon Saomai heading toward Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island.

Packing winds up to 89 mph, Saomai was 43 miles northwest of Naha, the capital of Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, late Tuesday.