It’s been raining hard for four weeks now and made it impossible to enjoy camping, but for the last two days things have gotten totally nuts. Record rains with constant thunder and lightning. Most areas have been getting about 100 millimeters in one hour, one area got 200 millimeters this morning. Earlier today many areas in Japan were inundated in major floods. Houses have been washed away and thousands of people have been evacuated. The area that I live in, Sammu city, Chiba prefecture, is set to have rivers overflow their banks tonight and all the trains have stopped. I wouldn’t even think of going up to the mountains again this week. Mudslides and landslides are bringing mountainsides down everywhere.
I’ve never seen anything like this in Japan. Just seeing how easily all the trappings of society get completely turned upside down makes me wonder what will happen when the sea levels really begin to rise. We are so fragile.
Laughing Knees 
7 replies on “Floods”
I thought we were in for some good weather when the sun came out this afternoon – but now I’m sitting here watching *yet another* electrical storm hit Tokyo. Never seen anything like this, almost a storm a day.. I can’t believe that low pressure system has just sat off Kyushuu for weeks now, throwing rain at Honshuu. Maybe, just maybe, this bodes for a fantastic autumn?!
LikeLike
Here in Otaki, Nagano things have been crazy too.
We’re way up in the mountains, so I worry about slides. Had a horrible one triggered by an earthquake in 1984.
Check out my post, “Unstable weather”
http://otakimura.blogspot.com/2008/08/thunderstorm.html%5D
LikeLike
Chris, Taintus, the rains may finally have begun to let up, but what a month that was! Mentally it feels like a war has ended. A sense of violence from above, now done. And the whole country in tatters. I went for a walk last night and was shocked by the vast destruction of kilometer after kilometer of rice in the paddies. It’s going to be a tough year for the farmers. Let’s hope the typhoon season waiting around the corner doesn’t further destroy things.
LikeLike
. . . i read this thinking how fragile we are, then you close the post with that very observation . . . i’ve been watching folks for a while now, and looking inside of myself, at this thing, this energy, this belief called “confidence” and how arbitrary it seems . . . and now reading your post i see that the latter is really simply a pretending that the former isn’t true . . . but it is . . . it seems miraculous that Life exists at all . . .
LikeLike
You really should watch this video. It will make you feel better about the world.
LikeLike
Hi Butuki, How are you doing? Just surfing past, knocking on the Japanese-style door of your site by the wayside… The worst of the summer storms should be over by now, and I hope you have a chance to go hiking in the fall-colored Japanese mountains.
LikeLike
Hi Butuki, have been thinking of you, missing your writings, and hoping you are okay…
LikeLike