Areas devastated by Typhoon Hagibis in Nagano Prefecture and the Tohoku region are struggling to respond after the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in decades caused record-breaking rainfall, massive flooding, mudslides and outages of electricity and water supplies.
In Marumori, Miyagi Prefecture, damage was so widespread that authorities faced difficulties at first making a full assessment of just how severe the problems were. Three days after floods ravaged the town, they are now starting to grasp the scale of the disaster.
"I don't want to use the word 'unexpected,' but I was shocked," said Mayor Kunio Hoshina during a news conference at the town office on Tuesday afternoon.