The time was 1:30 a.m., and Hiroshi Ogawa was trying to decide whether he should run from the biggest typhoon to hit Japan in decades. His home stood near the Chikuma River in Nagano Prefecture, separated from the rising waters by a levee. “I had confidence in the levee,” Mr. Ogawa, 68, said. “I had faith that it was built to withstand a hundred-year flood, so it should be O.K.” It was not. A little over an hour later, the levee burst, submerging his home and sweeping away everything in it. He barely escaped: Minutes before, he had driven to higher ground after being warned by volunteer firefighters to flee. The levee, in an area northwest of Tokyo, was one of at least 55 breached as Typhoon Hagibis dumped record-breaking rains on Japan last weekend, with more than 70 people […]