Houses lean forward, knocked partially off their foundations. The worst-hit are gone, their still-intact blue-tiled roofs left sitting on debris-strewn mud. The floodwaters have receded somewhat, but a vast area of the Japanese city of Joso remains inundated by a sea of brown water.

As the sun came out on Friday, shocked residents and officials began to take stock of the damage wrought the previous day when a rain-swollen river burst through its eastern bank, pouring in water so rapidly that many people could only clamber upstairs or to their roofs to escape.

"We survived but it looks like some of our soybeans and rice didn't," said Keiko Iita, 70, who spent the night with her husband and son on the second floor of their house.