Two primary school pupils and a man drowned Saturday afternoon in separate incidents, while a teen who was swept out to sea Friday and a climber remain missing, police said.
In Sapporo, Nene Saiso, 7, drowned after being swept away while playing in the Toyohira River. Her body was found 500 to 600 meters downstream.
In Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, Arashi Koga, 11, went missing while playing with schoolmates at the rain-swollen Seto River. His body was found 10 meters downstream.
Kensuke Nakajima, a 22-year-old salaried worker from Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, drowned while skin diving with two others some 50 meters off a fishing port in Iwami, Tottori Prefecture.
On Sunday, a man apparently in his 20s was apparently washed away while climbing alone in the Northern Alps in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture. Due to the rain over the weekend, the location, normally a road for climbers, was filled with a stream of muddied water about 4 meters wide, police said.
An 18-year-old teenager disappeared Friday when strong currents carried his raft out to sea off Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, local police said.
He vanished at around 10 p.m. Friday while paddling out to an uninhabited islet about 1.5 km off the coast with five other boys aged 17 or 18. They were in three inflatable rafts, each about 2 meters long and 1 meter wide, the police said.
The other five were rescued unharmed at various points around 3.7 to 9 km off the coast.
The waves were as high as 2.5 meters, with winds of up 54 kph, according to the Japan Coast Guard's Yokosuka office.