Death toll reaches 18 in floods and landslides in Japan

TOKYO (AFP) Jul 18, 2004
The death toll from floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains over coastal areas in northern Japan since early last week rose to 18 Sunday with five people missing, officials said.

The body of a 42-year-old woman, who went missing last Tuesday, was recovered from an irrigation canal in Sanjo, some 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, near the Sea of Japan (East Sea), police said.

In Fukui, some 300 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, a 66-year-old man was crushed to death in a landslide and two other elderly men drowned in a river or a canal, police said.

Four other people went missing in Fukui. One of them, a 72-year-old woman, was washed away in a swollen river.

As the seasonal rain front hovered over the coastal areas, a river also crested in Fukui, forcing 26,500 families to evacuate, police said.

Another person remained unaccounted for in Fukushima, 200 kilometers north of Tokyo.

TERRA.WIRE