Two reported killed in "unprecedented" heavy Japan rain

Two people died in eastern Japan after "unprecedented" heavy rain that left several thousand people stranded at Tokyo's Narita airport overnight and snarled up roads and rail services, reports said Friday.

The torrential downpours late Thursday triggered landslide warnings and power outages, with forecasters issuing the highest-level heavy rain warning for the Chiba region for the first time.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said that as of 5:30 am on Friday (2030 GMT Thursday), about 27,000 households in Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures were without power, NHK reported.

"This is shaping up to be an unprecedented level of heavy rain," a Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) official had told a news conference on Thursday.

Reports said that more than 6,000 people were stranded overnight at Narita, one of Tokyo's two main airports, with many trains to and from there cancelled until Friday afternoon.

Users on social media said that airport staff handed out free water, food and sleeping bags.

"I never thought I'd spend the night at the airport but it is what it is and we are learning," one stranded air traveller told NHK.

"We're never going to forget this trip," he said.

Hundreds of people were also left stranded in Chiba station due to suspended train services, an AFP journalist saw.

Hundreds spent the night in shelters in Chiba, NHK reported, showing cars in flood water up to their headlights in Kashiwa city.

"This happened all of a sudden so it was a complete surprise. The power is out so I'm worried whether I can open my business in the next couple of days," a woman in Chiba's Ichikawa city told NHK on Thursday.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather more frequent, prolonged and intense.