Heavy rains lashed the Kanto area early Monday, closing some schools and forcing the cancellation of some train operations while prompting the highest-level landside warning for a village on one of Tokyo’s southern islands. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued a level 5 emergency warning for landslides for Tokyo’s Niijima island, some 160 kilometers south of the capital, as of 4:15 a.m. The warning is the highest level of alert on the agency’s scale of 1 to 5.
The heavy rains were also inundating areas of the capital further north, as well as Chiba and Kanagawa Prefectures. The agency is urging people to be on high alert for landslides, rising river levels and floods in some low-lying areas. A level 4 warning for heavy rain was issued for the city of Chiba early Monday.
Rainfall of more than 50 millimeters per hour is forecast for the Kanto region until shortly before noon Monday, according to the agency. The 24-hour rainfall through Monday night was forecast to reach as much as 300 millimeters in the Tokai region, 250 millimeters in the Kanto-Koshin area and as much as 200 millimeters in the Tohoku and Kinki regions and in the area of the Izu Islands, the JMA said. Some elementary and middle schools in Tokyo, as well as in Chiba and Kanagawa Prefectures, have cancelled classes.
Commuters were also impacted, with JR East’s Yamanote Line, Chuo Line, Sobu Line and Tokaido Line all seeing operations with 20% to 30% fewer trains on Monday. The storm front is forecast to continue moving north, with Tropical Storm Krovanh expected to send warm, damp air toward it. Krovanh was moving north-northeast over waters 50 km north-northeast of Minamidaito Island in Okinawa Prefecture, according to the JMA.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
