One week after an unprecedented flood overwhelmed the city of Joso in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japanese-Brazilian resident David Kiyoshi Shibata believes it's a miracle he's still alive.

Despite being 185 cm tall, Shibata says he found himself completely engulfed by the deluge and had to fight hard to keep his head above the surging waters. He narrowly escaped death by taking refuge on the roof of a nearby house, but in the process a fragment of broken glass sliced open his wrist, leaving a wound that required five stitches.

None of this, however, would have happened had the city of Joso warned of the approaching danger over a loudspeaker in languages other than Japanese, the Sao Paulo native says.