Typhoon Dujuan: Four Dead, Six Missing Near Tokyo
Record rainfall triggered landslides in Kanagawa and Chiba: four people are dead, six are missing, tens of thousands of households lost power and flights into Tokyo were canceled.
Typhoon Dujuan struck eastern Japan on September 21 and 22 with record rainfall, triggering landslides in the Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures. According to figures reported today by Al Jazeera and the Turkish outlet Türkiye Today, citing the Japan Times, the storm has killed four people. Six more are still listed as missing, and search efforts are continuing even after the storm moved on.
In Yokosuka, in Kanagawa, a 64 year old woman died after a landslide buried her in mud and flooded the ground floor of her two story house. A kilometer away, a couple in their seventies went missing after a landslide hit their home, while in nearby Miura, rescuers are searching for two women: one in her twenties, whose apartment was buried in mud, and another whose building was damaged by a landslide.
In Chiba, a 51 year old worker died after the heavy machine he was using to clear mud from a road fell into a bamboo grove near the site of a landslide; police are investigating the circumstances. Landslides also killed two women, one in her seventies in Kamogawa and one in her eighties in Sanmu, while two men remain missing in Kamogawa. Twenty two people were injured.
Record Rainfall on Oshima Island
Oshima Island, part of Tokyo’s Izu archipelago, recorded 832 millimeters of rain in 48 hours, the highest total since measurements began there. Ichihara, in Chiba, logged 487 millimeters, Sakahata near Kimitsu recorded 476.5 millimeters, the Rinkai area of Tokyo’s Edogawa ward saw 325 millimeters, and Haneda Airport recorded 261.5 millimeters, a local record.
Kamakura Mayor Takashi Matsuo warned residents to avoid driving.
“Parts of the city are flooded, so driving is dangerous.”
He posted the warning on X after social media footage showed a flooded road in front of Kamakura Station, a popular tourist spot. Flooding also hit parts of Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, and Oamishirasato.
Sources differ on how many households lost power. Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported around 45,000 households without electricity in Kanagawa, while Tokyo Electric Power Grid, cited by the Japan Times, put the figure at 48,320 households across four prefectures, with the worst outages in Chiba and further disruptions in Kanagawa, Yamanashi and Shizuoka.
The storm also disrupted transport. Japan Airlines canceled 135 flights and All Nippon Airways canceled 140, leaving passengers stranded at Haneda Airport during the Silver Week holiday. JR East partially suspended bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka, along with its Sobu, Narita and Sotobo lines, while Keikyu halted service between Kanazawa-Hakkei and Uraga stations, and between Horinouchi and Misakiguchi.
The Tokyo Game Show, one of the world’s largest video game trade fairs, closed early on its final day, and in Chiba a large outdoor music festival and a baseball game were both canceled.
Dujuan is the 25th typhoon to hit Japan this year, a country that routinely faces powerful storms in late summer and early autumn. By this morning the system was moving northeast, toward the Aleutian Islands, but the Japan Meteorological Agency warns the danger has not passed: the ground is saturated, and landslides can still occur even after the rain stops, triggered by moisture trapped in the soil.
