A Japanese city was flooded Thursday when a raging river burst its banks, destroying homes and cars as desperate residents waited for help, and as thousands of people were ordered to evacuate, AFP reports.
Dramatic television footage showed a wall of muddy water gushing from the swollen Kinugawa river in Joso city, north of Tokyo, which is home to around 65,000 people.
Several people are reportedly missing across the country as waist-high floods in some areas left rescuers scrambling to pluck residents to safety as a wide area was deluged in the wake of Typhoon Etau.
The huge rains also exacerbated a contaminated water problem at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant as it overwhelmed the site's drainage pumps, sending radiation-tainted water into the ocean.