Death toll rises to 8 due to heavy rain and floods in Japan

The death toll rises to eight after record-breaking rainfall overnight

batters Japan's Chiba Prefecture just 40 kilometres southeast of central Tokyo

flooding homes and roads and leaving thousands of people stranded.

The Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded its most severe warning

for heavy rain in more than a dozen municipalities in Chiba

as rain subsided Friday morning but more rain was forecast later in the day.

These were the scenes in Oamishirasato, central Chiba Friday.

Flooded neighbourhoods, with homes and vehicles submerged in the floodwaters.

Railway tracks also flooded with muddy water.

The Ground Self-Defense Force says it dispatched buses to pick up about

4,000 stranded people who stayed overnight at the Soga train station

a local route that also serves Tokyo Disney.

Thousands more people were stuck overnight at Narita airport

serving the Tokyo region, with trains out of the area stopped.

Services partially resumed Friday morning with delays

while flights in and out of Narita were operating normally

with many people returning home at the end of Japan's Bon Buddhist

holiday week.

Hundreds of people took shelter overnight at the Chiba prefectural

government building.

The prefecture said four people were found dead and another

person was missing.

The victims included a man found floating on a flooded road

in Ichikawa city and a woman who had been stuck in a flooded

car in Sakura city.

Another person pulled from a flooded car in Kashiwa city was

presumed dead.

More than 80 homes were flooded in the prefecture and nearly

230,000 residents across the prefecture were advised to take shelter.

The torrential rain and flooding also knocked out power to about

23,000 homes Friday, down from 68,000 earlier.

Record-breaking rainfall of 11.5 centimetres fell in just one hour

in Chiba City and 9.7 centimetres fell in one hour in Sakura,

which was also a record.