On Thursday, a couple hours after the Shirakawa had reached its highest point, I went to have a look. I found this monument to the June 26, 1953 flood.
Here something that I posted a few years ago about the 1953 flood:
“In 1953 the Shirakawa River overflowed. One of the Japanese web sites I looked at said that the total of dead and missing was 422, while another said that the total was more than 500. Unusually heavy rain caused volcanic ash and sand from the Aso volcano to be swept into the river and carried to the city where it took out 85 bridges and inundated 31,145 homes.”