Record rainfall across western Japan caused flooding of rivers and landslides. To date, 176 lives are known to have been lost in 13 prefectures. Dozens of people remain unaccounted for and hundreds of thousands of displaced residents are living in evacuation centers. One of the reasons raised for the exceedingly large amount of casualties is because residents were not prepared for this level of flooding.
Deadly rains in Japan point to growing impacts of climate change
To understand the record rains that have fallen on western Japan, we cannot ignore the reality of climate change.