Seven people have been killed and 10 others are missing after record rainfall caused floods and landslides in parts of Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture. The cities of Wajima and Suzu are still recovering from a deadly earthquake that devastated the area on January 1st killing 374 people, but this past Sunday more than 540 mm of rainfall was recorded in Wajima in just over 72 hours. The rain didn’t stop until 3:00 pm on Monday. More than 100 communities across the prefecture were isolated due to the river banks cutting off the roads. More than 40,000 residents across four cities in Ishikawa have evacuated over the weekend.

Two of the people that died were found near a landslide-hit tunnel in Wajima. One of them being a construction worker that was carrying out road repairs. “Two elderly men and an elderly woman were among the other fatalities”, The Japan Times said, citing local authorities. Japan issued its highest life-threatening alert level for Ishikawa on Saturday and then downgraded it to a normal warning on Sunday. Although, authorities have called for continued vigilance as the rain was likely to continue on Monday. 

As of Monday afternoon, almost 4000 households are left without power, according to the Hokuriku Electric Power Company. The search for the missing is still ongoing, but it is very difficult for the police to bring heavy machinery as some roads are cut off or narrowed. The shelters that were built for survivors of the new years earthquake also were flooded due to overflowing rivers. a 54-year-old Wajima resident, told police that when she was driving on Saturday, “within only 30 minutes or so, water gushed into the street and quickly rose to half the height of my car”. Meanwhile, officials in the Ishikawa prefecture are delivering rice and portable toilets to districts in Wajima now that the weather has improved. This is a developing story.