Record rainfall floods Tokyo's Narita Airport, killing at least eight
Record rainfall has stranded thousands of passengers overnight at Tokyo's Narita Airport. More than 360mm fell in 24 hours in Chiba prefecture, killing at least eight people and cutting power to 20,000 homes. Japan's weather agency issued its highest-level emergency rain warning.
Record rainfall paralyzed the region around Tokyo's Narita Airport on Friday, stranding thousands of passengers overnight and killing at least eight people. More than 360mm (14 inches) of rain fell within 24 hours in parts of Chiba prefecture, according to Reuters, flooding roads and railways and cutting power to roughly 20,000 households. Around 7,000 passengers remained inside Narita's three terminals early Friday, some sleeping on the floor after the airport opened restricted areas and distributed water, food and sleeping bags. Japan's Meteorological Agency issued its highest-level, Level 5 emergency heavy rain warning for parts of Chiba, a designation reserved for events posing an imminent threat to life. Several major highways in the prefecture were closed, forcing drivers onto already congested alternate routes, while multiple rail services were suspended before some Narita-to-Tokyo connections resumed later in the day. The event illustrates a structural vulnerability shared by major airports built on flood-prone coastal plains: even when runways and terminals themselves escape damage, the surface transport corridors that get passengers in and out can be severed by a single extreme rainfall event, stranding travelers for hours regardless of flight schedules. Soldiers were deployed to assist with rescue operations in the flooded areas. Source: Reuters, Bloomberg.