GEJET:
TEPCO rejected requests for anti-tsunami steps before nuclear crisis
First cancer case confirmed from Fukushima cleanup
Japan:
Behind the Scenes / Concern for privacy of Joso missing excessive
Volunteers mucking in to help Japan clean-up
USA:
Hurricane Patricia Recap: Strongest Landfalling Pacific Hurricane on Record
Flood risk on rise for New York City, New Jersey coast, study finds
One-two punch of rising seas, bigger storms may greatly magnify US East coast floods
Netherlands:
Pop-up Exhibition in Dordrecht on potential flood disasters
Other:
In dryland African regions, limiting wildlife water access can reduce water quality
NASA studying 2015 El Nino event as never before
Want To Know How Sea Level Rise Will Impact Your Hometown? There’s A Map For That
Surging seas mapping progress
Researchers work on model to help restoration managers with decision-making (USA, Germany)
Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean
Work starts on Sendai indicators
Vulnerable People:
Japan’s child poverty above OECD average
Shibuya Ward to begin accepting applications for 'same-sex partnership certificates'
Japanese flood and landslides:
Here are the latest statistics from the Japanese government's Fire and Disaster Management Agency and other national and local governments as of Friday, Sept. 18:
• The death toll is eight: three in Tochigi Prefecture, three in Ibaraki Prefecture, and two in Miyagi Prefecture.
• There are 46 confirmed injuries, with Ibaraki Prefecture accounting for 24 of them.
• A total of 18,882 dwellings have been confirmed flooded. Ibaraki leads this list as well, with 12,088 flooded homes.
• In addition to the flooded homes, 16 dwellings have been destroyed and another 102 have structural damage.
• Damage also occurred to 61 non-residential structures.
• Damage to the agricultural, forestry and fishing industries has reached 11.7 billion yen (about 98 million U.S. dollars).
• At least 455 landslides were reported – 358 of them in Tochigi Prefecture alone, and 312 of those in the city of Nikkō, according to the prefectural government.
• Up to 26 inches of rain fell in eastern Japan Sunday through Friday due to Tropical Storm Etau and its remnant low.
• Local officials in Ibaraki Prefecture said 1,344 people had been rescued via helicopter by the country's Self-Defence Force and rescuers from 10 of the country's 47 prefectures.
Key developments in the storm:
• On Wednesday, Sept. 16, officials confimed the death of a 40-year-old man who had been out on his bicycle when the floods hit Ibaraki Prefecture on Sept. 10.
• A 60-year-old man was found dead Saturday after the vehicle he was in was swept into a flooded river Friday morning in the city of Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture. A 48-year-old woman also died in that incident.
• Japanese media said a pair of eight-year-old boys were among those found alive and removed from the list of missing Saturday.
• Two men, ages 71 and 51, were found dead in rice fields flooded by the levee breach in Joso, according to public broadcaster NHK. The men were not previously among the list of missing.
• The Japanese government's Fire and Disaster Management Agency confirmed that a man found dead in a flooded vehicle in Tochigi Prefecture Sunday morning died of storm-related causes.
• A 63-year-old woman was confirmed dead after a landslide struck Kanuma city, Tochigi Prefecture, early Thursday. The woman was missing for hours before being found dead Thursday evening.
• A man in his 20s was confirmed dead Friday after falling into a flooded drainage pipe Thursday in Nikkō city, Tochigi Prefecture.
• Rare emergency weather warnings were issued for Tochigi, Ibaraki and Miyagi prefectures on Thursday and Friday, but have all since been lowered.
• A magnitude-5.2 earthquake struck Tokyo Bay at 5:49 a.m. local time Saturday, rattling the entire Tokyo region and prompting fears of quake-triggered landslides in rain-soaked hilly terrain.
• The earthquake injured seven people in Tokyo and its suburbs, according to the FDMA.
• Another earthquake, rated magnitude 4.6 and centered off the east coast of Ibaraki Prefecture, rattled the Joso flood zone nearly six hours later but with weaker ground shaking.
• The Shibui River broke through a levee in Ōsaki city, Miyagi Prefecture, on Friday morning. At least 1,000 people were stranded in floodwaters, according to the newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
• The Japan Meteorological Agency issued the maximum "Level 5" flood warning Friday for the Yoshida River in Miyagi Prefecture and for the Mogamiogumi River in Yamagata Prefecture.
• More than 800 people in the mountainous town of Minamiaizu, Fukushima Prefecture, were cut off from the outside world due to flooding and landslides on the lone highway through town Friday.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a rare emergency heavy rainfall warning for Miyagi Prefecture and its 2.3 million residents early Friday as torrential rains continued to drench the prefecture, which includes the city of Sendai, raising concerns of landslides and river flooding. The JMA observation site near Sendai's central business district reported 269 millimeters (10.59 inches) of rain in the 24-hour period between 7:40 a.m. Thursday and 7:40 a.m. Friday local time. (Japan is 13 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Daylight Time.) JMA lowered the warning for Miyagi Friday evening.
"We can say this is an abnormal situation and there is imminent serious danger," said Takuya Deshimaru, chief forecaster at the Japan Meteorological Agency, according to the BBC.
On Thursday, JMA issued similar emergency weather warnings for 5 million people in Tochigi Prefecture and Ibaraki Prefecture, north and northeast of Tokyo, on Thursday morning. The warnings were issued as a band of heavy rainfall associated with the post-tropical remnant of Tropical Storm Etau stalled over eastern Japan, dumping up to 21 inches of rain in 24 hours near the head of the Kunigawa River, which drains south through the northern suburbs of Tokyo.
The emergency warnings in Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures were lowered Friday morning.
