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TOKYO: One woman was found dead and another was missing as torrential rain drenched central Japan, leading authorities to urge an entire city of nearly 400,000 people to evacuate, officials said.
Heavy rain since late Thursday has flooded hundreds of houses and roads, triggered landslides and destroyed bridges and river banks.
The worst-affected city was Okazaki, some 300 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, which was hit by 146 millimetres of rain per hour early Friday.
"I've lived here for 70 years but never experienced anything like this before," a man told public broadcaster NHK.
Another man said: "You could call it a 'guerrilla' downpour. It just lashed down suddenly."
Television footage from a helicopter showed inundated rice fields and roads with cars and buildings half-submerged.
Police recovered the body of Suzue Kuroyanagi, 76, in an inundated house. Her husband had called rescuers, saying water had come up to his chest and his wife was swept away.
The city in Aichi prefecture advised all of its 376,000 residents to evacuate temporarily.
However, only 50 people evacuated with most staying at home as the rain moved away by early afternoon, a disaster prevention official in the city said.
The government set up an emergency centre at the prime minister's office and sent troops to help relief and rescue efforts, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said in Tokyo.
An 80-year-old woman who was living in one of damaged houses went missing.
"She had a feeble back and legs and was living alone. I guess she had trouble running away," a worried neighbour told NHK.
In Ichinomiya, another city in Aichi, a man believed to be delivering morning newspapers was found unconscious after falling with his bicycle into an irrigation ditch.
He was sent to hospital in critical condition, a city official said.
- AFP/yb
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