FUKUOKA (UCAN): “The damage has been quite big and, unfortunately, the heavy rains are still continuing,” Bishop Joseph Abella of Fukuoka said on July 10 as unprecedented heavy rains lashed Japan’s main island of Kyushu since July 4.
As swollen rivers overflowed and swamped farmland and residential areas, roads and houses were destroyed, forcing people out of shelters.
Some three million people have been evacuated to safer places and the Japan Meteorological Agency has extreme weather warnings in more than 20 municipalities of Gifu and Nagano prefectures, reports said.
Bishop Abella said that at least 60 people are dead and some 40 are missing after record-breaking rains battered the area.
The bishop said people have lost homes, workplaces and crops damaged but that detailed information on the damage suffered by church communities, parishes institutions is not yet available.
“We are especially worried about foreign workers who may not be able to understand government instructions in the local language and who do not have their families at hand to help them,” he said.
The Diocese of Fukuoka, which encompasses one of the worst-hit areas, started a campaign to collect funds to help needy people.
Bishop Abella said Covid-19 coronavirus restrictions are hindering the diocese from organising volunteer programmes to help those in need. “We try to facilitate the participation of the people in programmes organised by the authorities,” he said.
He said weather forecasters are warning of similar situations in other parts of the country too. “We have already witnessed some floods in some areas of the dioceses of Oita, Kagoshima and Nagoya,” the bishop said.
On July 7, prime minister, Shinzo Abe, pledged to increase the deployment of rescue personnel including police, firefighters and coast guard personnel.
At least 20,000 rescue workers have already been pressed into service to reach survivors stranded by flooding and landslides.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has hampered rescue operations because of the need for social distancing, reducing the capacity of shelter homes to house flood victims.
Japan has been relatively less impacted by the pandemic, with just over 21,500 positive cases and fewer than 1,000 deaths.
In Yatsushiro, in Kumamoto prefecture, a sports gymnasium has been converted into a shelter, with families separated by temporary walls to maintain social distancing.
Japan is going through its annual rainy season which frequently results in floods and landslides. In 2018, more than 200 people perished in a devastating flood in western Japan.
