JAPANESE FLOODS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 9

JAPANESE FLOODS

6000 Dead Or Missing

TOKYO, July IK More than 6000 Japanese were reported dead or missing today as a result of sudden violent floods that swallowed whole villages about 200 miles south-west of Tokyo. The new disaster was described as worse than the Kyushu Island flood three weeks ago, which claimed about 700 lives, and was considered the most terrible flood in modem Japanese history. The police said that about 500 persons perished and more than 3000 were missing in the Arita valley, where fast-rising flood waters overran seven villages and the coastal town of Minoshima, which had a population of 17,000. Five hundred others died and 2000 are missing in the Hidaka valley, 30 miles to the south.

A Japanese reporter, who flew over the scene, said that only the roofs were visible at the town of Gobo, where the Hidaka river flows into the Pacific. The stricken area is in the Wakayama Prefecture, on the east central coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island. More than 122,000 persons were left homeless and at least 3000 houses were washed away, the police said, when torrential rains turned the mountain rivers into raging torrents. The Wakayama Prefecture authorities reported that the river embankments had been breached in hundreds of places. American Air Force aeroplanes are flying in food.