Record 3,451 mudslides occurred in Japan in 2018 due to rain, quake

Record 3,451 mudslides occurred in Japan in 2018 due to rain, quake

... and government policies, I would add. Like Fukushima, natural disaster can be a lot worse b/c of poor decisions made by government. This is from 1995:

The forests in this mountainous region [of Japan] were once verdant swaths of oak, maple and numerous other kinds of broadleaf trees and evergreens. But after World War II, Government bureaucrats applied their aggressive industrial policies to the environment as well as the economy. In the process, they financed the replacement of what they saw as commercially useless natural forests with more economically productive trees.

For the most part, this extraordinary experiment in environmental engineering has involved planting a single species, the Japanese cedar, because of the usefulness of its wood and the speed of its growth. As a result, Japan now has the largest tracts of cedar on earth...

The aim was to make the country self-sufficient in wood products, but the widespread sensitivities to cedar pollen are just one indication of how this single-minded strategy has gone awry. It is becoming increasingly apparent, experts say, that the superabundance of a single species of tree is threatening wildlife, causing heavy soil erosion, reducing the water table and creating the potential for disastrous landslides....

Because they have shallow roots, [cedars] hold less water in the earth and can be felled easily by storms and landslides.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/17/science/japan-s-cedar-forests-are-man-made-disaster.html

and deforestation

Lay more concrete.