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Japan's heartland struggles after heaviest rainfall

Nagoya flooding
A Japanese trooper guides a raft carrying evacuees through floodwaters in Nagoya, central Japan  

NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) -- People living in Japan's industrial heartland struggled on Wednesday to recover from the nation's heaviest rainfall in at least a century.

But local authorities in the central Japanese metropolis of Nagoya said most of the remaining 5,000 evacuees were likely to go home soon.

At the height of the storm 200,000 households had been advised to evacuate, and floodwater reached as deep as one meter (3.3 feet).

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CNN's Marina Kamimura reports on the widespread flooding

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Flooding and landslides from the rains, which were triggered by typhoon Saomai, killed at least seven people, left at least two missing and flooded almost 60,000 houses in Aichi Prefecture in central Japan, a prefectural official said.

An official in Nagoya -- a city of more than two million people which was hardest hit by the storm -- said about 5,000 people remained in evacuation centres.

"They may be able to go home as early as today because the water level has been receding and the river bank is being repaired now," an official with the Nagoya city task force set up to cope with the disaster told Reuters.

Japan's biggest automaker Toyota Motor Corp, however, said

said on Wednesday that production at 11 of its plants in Aichi was still stalled as a result of damage from the rains.

Typhoon Saomai, which passed through Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa overnight, was moving slowly into the East China Sea, the Meteorological Agency said.

The agency said that because of the slow movement of the typhoon western Japan could suffer more rainfall throughout the day.

Floodwaters had poured through residential areas of Nagoya early on Tuesday when two rivers burst their banks following the torrential rains.

At the height of the storm local authorities urged 200,000 households to evacuate to public facilities in the prefectures around Nagoya.

The rising waters in Nagoya had also forced a 20-hour shutdown of the famous Shinkansen high-speed bullet trains that link most of Japan's major cities, the longest such shutdown in its 36-year history.

Major highways and 26 of the numerous automobile factories in the area, home to Toyota Motor, were also shut, quickly depriving factories elsewhere of needed parts.

But on Wednesday, highways were opened and bullet trains were operating normally, although subways in Nagoya were still flooded and not running.

The rainfall in the region was the highest on record for a 24-hour period since the local observatory began keeping records in 1891, and nearly one-third of the usual rainfall for a whole year.

Nagoya flooding
Residents wade through the neck-deep waters in Nagoya, Japan Tuesday  

In some areas the water reached as deep as one meter (3.3 feet) and the smell of gasoline, believed to have come from submerged cars, filled the air.

Automaker Toyota, headquartered near Nagoya and a key employer in the area, said the production halt was expected to affect output of some 17,000 vehicles.

Two plants belonging to car assembly subsidiaries have also stalled their operations, a spokesman added.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp, meanwhile said operations at two plants resumed operation on Wednesday after a temporary suspension a day before that affected 1,500 vehicles.

The temporary suspension at the top automakers could dent Japan's overall industrial output temporarily, but it is too soon to know by how much, some economists have said.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ASIANOW


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RELATED SITES:
Japan's Meteorological Agency
Asianow weather forecast
Asia Meteorology Online Newsletter Tropical Cyclone Facts and Figures FAQ: Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Tropical Cyclones Pacific Region of the National Weather Service World Meteorological Organization


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