Soaked Cities Face a Muddy Cleanup

Skies cleared over cities swamped by Japan’s heaviest rain on record, but streets were still flooded and fears of landslides kept hundreds of thousands of people away from their homes. The torrential rain Tuesday in central Japan--bolstered by a typhoon creeping up from the south--killed seven people, stranded 50,000 bullet train passengers and forced Toyota and Mitsubishi to halt car production for a day. Officials were scrambling to drain muddy water from flooded streets in the city of Nagoya, said Kenji Ogawa, an official with Aichi prefecture, which was hit hardest by the downpour.