By

Oct. 12, 2019

As of Monday, dozens of people had been killed, more were missing and hundreds of thousands had been forced to abandon their homes after Japan was lashed by Typhoon Hagibis, the most powerful storm to strike the country in decades.

Rescue services jumped into action, using helicopters to pluck stranded people from balconies and roofs, and inflatable boats to access residential streets turned into raging rivers.

More than 100 rivers had flooded, the public broadcaster NHK reported, after record-breaking rains. In Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, a levee burst on the Chikuma river, flooding a wide area of Nagano city.

Another four levees across the flood zone had also collapsed, according to NHK.

Here is the storm in photos.