At least four people were killed and around 6,000 travellers stranded overnight at Narita International Airport after record rainfall struck Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, on the night of 13–14 August 2026. A fifth person was feared dead and a sixth remained unaccounted for as of Friday morning, leaving the final toll uncertain.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued a level-5 heavy rain warning — its highest alert — for the Chiba region for the first time in its history, according to DW. The agency downgraded the warning to level-4 by Friday morning. At least five more people were injured in addition to the fatalities.
JMA official Takuya Hosomi told a televised emergency news conference that unprecedented levels of rainfall had been recorded across the prefecture.
Among the confirmed dead were a man in his 60s or 70s found floating on a flooded road in Ichikawa city, and a 66-year-old woman discovered in her submerged car in Sakura city, Mid-Day reported. The identities and circumstances of the other two victims have not been publicly confirmed.
More than 36 centimetres — roughly 14 inches — of rain fell in parts of Chiba prefecture within 24 hours. A record 11.5 centimetres fell in a single hour in Chiba City, and 9.7 centimetres in one hour in Sakura, according to Mid-Day. Both figures represent all-time hourly records for those locations.
Roads flooded across the prefecture, and more than 80 homes were inundated. Approximately 230,000 residents were advised to take shelter, and more than 100,000 households were urged to evacuate. Soldiers were deployed to assist with relief efforts.
At its peak, around 68,000 households across Chiba were without electricity, Mid-Day reported. That figure had fallen to roughly 26,000 by Friday morning, according to BSS News, though the extent of longer-term infrastructure damage was not yet known.
The disruption at Narita — one of Tokyo's two main international gateways — was sharpened by timing. The downpour struck during one of Japan's busiest holiday travel periods, with many train services to and from the airport cancelled into Friday afternoon, leaving approximately 6,000 people to spend the night inside the terminal.
Japan is struck by severe summer rainfall regularly, and the JMA operates a five-tier warning system to manage public response. What distinguished the August 2026 event was the activation of that system's highest level for Chiba prefecture — something that had never previously occurred. Whether secondary hazards such as landslides caused further casualties after Friday morning's reports was not immediately clear.
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