One Dead, Two Missing in Japan after Heavy Rain

A general view shows a flooded street in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture on June 3, 2023, after heavy rains caused by passing Tropical Storm Mawar hit much of the country the day before. (AFP)
A general view shows a flooded street in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture on June 3, 2023, after heavy rains caused by passing Tropical Storm Mawar hit much of the country the day before. (AFP)
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One Dead, Two Missing in Japan after Heavy Rain

A general view shows a flooded street in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture on June 3, 2023, after heavy rains caused by passing Tropical Storm Mawar hit much of the country the day before. (AFP)
A general view shows a flooded street in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture on June 3, 2023, after heavy rains caused by passing Tropical Storm Mawar hit much of the country the day before. (AFP)

Heavy rain across parts of Japan has killed one person, left two missing and injured dozens more, authorities said Saturday, with thousands of residents issued evacuation warnings.

The inundation has been caused by the remnants of former Typhoon Mawar, now downgraded to a tropical storm.

A rescue team in central Aichi region's Toyohashi, where the country's highest-level evacuation alert was issued Friday, "found a man approximately in his 60s in a submerged car, but he was later confirmed dead," a city official told AFP.

In western Wakayama, where several rivers burst their banks, officials told AFP that they had resumed the search for one man and one woman missing in the region.

A total of six people were seriously injured and 24 suffered minor injuries as of Saturday morning, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

In central and western Japan, many evacuation orders -- which are non-compulsory, even at the highest level -- were being downgraded as rains eased.

But new warnings were issued in areas close to Tokyo in the early morning due to flooding risks.

With several cities including Aichi's Toyohashi and Koshigaya near Tokyo reportedly seeing the highest 24-hour rainfall on record, the Japan Meteorological Agency urged residents to "be on high alert for landslides, overflowing rivers, and flooding of low-lying areas".

Some 4,000 households in regions close to Tokyo suffered power outages early Saturday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said, but the issue was mostly resolved several hours later.

Shinkansen bullet trains were temporarily suspended between Tokyo and Nagoya, but Japan Railway said they resumed operations around noon.

Scientists say climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in Japan and elsewhere, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

Strong rain in 2021 triggered a devastating landslide in the central resort town of Atami that killed 27 people.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country's annual rainy season.

Earlier this week, Mawar -- then a typhoon -- passed just north of the Pacific island of Guam, uprooting trees and leaving tens of thousands of homes temporarily without power.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."