Heavy rain and two tropical storms have caused severe flooding in Taiwan and western Japan, leaving at least two people dead in Taiwan and prompting Japanese authorities to issue evacuation orders for approximately one million residents. A man was also injured in Nara, Japan, after falling into a swollen waterway, according to local emergency services.

In Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration attributed the torrential downpours to Tropical Storm Mekkhala, which strengthened southwesterly winds as it moved northward east of the island. Taiwanese officials confirmed that a 73-year-old woman in Kaohsiung was swept away by floodwaters on Thursday, and a woman was found dead near her submerged vehicle in Hsinchu County on Friday. Southern regions bore the brunt, with Tainan recording over 250 mm of rain in six hours and Kaohsiung’s Dashu District accumulating more than 600 mm in a single day—nearly a quarter of the city’s average annual rainfall. A levee failure in Pingtung County inundated villages, while emergency crews deployed inflatable boats to rescue stranded residents.

In Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency said the seasonal rain front was being supercharged by warm, moist air from Tropical Storm Mekkhala and Tropical Storm Higos. Mekkhala, downgraded from a typhoon after skirting Taiwan, was located south of Yakushima on Saturday morning, moving east-northeast with sustained winds near 64 km/h. Higos, having already transitioned into an extratropical cyclone off Fukushima Prefecture, had earlier brought gusts of up to 125 km/h near its centre. The combined effect triggered flooding alerts across Kyoto, Osaka, and other parts of western Japan, where more than 30 homes were inundated in Nara and Hiroshima prefectures. A maximum instantaneous wind speed of 29.3 m/s was recorded on Izu Oshima, and the city of Choshi in Chiba logged a record 149 mm of rain in 12 hours for June.

Transport networks were severely disrupted. Japan’s land ministry reported over 200 flight cancellations and the suspension of dozens of train services, including bullet trains in the Kanto, Tohoku, and Shinetsu regions. Several expressways were closed, and Toyota briefly halted operations at a Kyushu plant. As the storms approached the Tokyo region on Saturday, authorities maintained high-level landslide warnings and monitored river levels. The situation remains fluid, with no final casualty toll and the storms’ full impact yet to be assessed.