Typhoon-powered storms killed five people and forced 100,000 to evacuate in central Japan Tuesday as floods engulfed homes, tore up trees and unleashed deadly landslides.
Waters rose to the tip of signposts in one tree-lined avenue that was turned into a muddy-brown river in Nagoya, main city of the worst-hit Aichi prefecture.
Firemen were shown on television using small metallic boats to evacuate families, who sheltered under plastic sheets.
A total 765 army troops were sent in to help.
"The personnel are rescuing people trapped in houses, ferrying them over the water in boats and piling sandbags on riverbanks," said a spokesman for the Ground Self-Defence Forces.
Among the dead, 77-year-old Sumio Kurachi and his 72-year-old wife Miyoko were killed by a landslide that buried their home in Aichi prefecture's Komaki city.
"Mud and 20-meter (66-foot) trees buried their house," said Aichi prefecture police spokesman Hidekazu Horiuchi.
A 53-year-old firefighter in Nagoya city, Kinji Kimura, was drowned in a drainage channel near his home after leaving by bicycle for a job, Horiuchi said.
A 49-year-old lawyer, Makoto Goto, was found dead after being buried in a mudslide while apparently walking along the road in Nagoya city.
And in neighbouring Shizuoka, a nine-year-old girl Sayo Masuda slipped into an open drain Monday and was swept by floodwaters into a pond, where she drowned.
Seven people were still missing, according to a written statement from the National Police Agency.
Typhoon Saomai, packing winds of up to 162 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) was approaching the southern island of Okinawa, said the Meteorological Agency chief researcher Ryosuke Ichizawa.
"This continues to create a volatile air movement over Japan," he said. "The rainfall is reaching its heaviest level in western Aichi, and residents should be warned."
All air and sea links with Okinawa were suspended.
"I would like to extend my condolences to those that died and my sympathy to those suffering from the floods," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa told a news conference.
"We will stay on alert," he added.
Local authorities ordered about 250,000 residents to evacuate, said Munetoki Naito, a spokesman for the worst-hit prefecture of Aichi, which includes Nagoya city.
But so far only 72,133 had actually moved, he added.
Another 11,138 evacuated in the neighbouring prefecture of Mie and 19,849 in Gifu, officials said.
The water could be seen in Aichi prefecture ripping long gashes out of earthen embankments along the Shonai river. Another eight rivers also flooded in the prefecture, where 14,329 homes were inundated.
Power was cut off to about 28,000 homes in Aichi, Gifu and Nagano prefectures as facilities were flooded, said Chubu Electric Power spokesman Toshihiro Watarai.
Bullet train services to Nagoya were interrupted, delaying 52,000 people as of Monday, said a Japan Railway Tokai spokesman. "Some passengers have been forced to wait for more than 18 hours on the trains."
Telephone calls to Aichi were interrupted. Recorded messages said it would take some time to restore full service.
"Since last night no-one has eaten anything," one woman at a shelter in Nagoya city was quoted as telling a television reporter. "We are currently waiting for 200 meals." - TOKYO (AFP)
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