The prefectural government has called on residents of 12 cities and towns in the eastern part of the prefecture, including a part of Saitama City, through their respective local governments, to refrain from washing clothes and taking baths, which create domestic wastewater. About 1.2 million people are subject to the notice.

Rescue workers in Japan are trying to pull out a truck driver from a sinkhole that appeared on Tuesday and has since widened. The sinkhole appeared in Yashio city in Saitama prefecture, near the capital Tokyo,