"Race against time" to rescue flood victims in Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday warned of a "race against time" to save flood victims as authorities issued new alerts on record rains that killed at least 48 people.

Torrential rains caused floods and landslides "Rescues, saving lives and evacuations are a race against time," Abe said at a meeting with a crisis cell government to respond. "There are still many people whose safety has not been confirmed yet," he added.

The government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said the death toll was now 48, but according to local media, more than 60 people reportedly died and dozens more are reported missing.

The rain completely covered some villages, forcing desperate residents to take refuge on their roofs. After being rescued, they waited for more than two million people, but orders are not mandatory and many have remained at home, letting themselves be trapped by the rapid rise of water or sudden landslides.

The meteorological agency released its highest level of alert for two new regions on Sunday, while raising warnings for other areas where rains were decreasing.

Routes Turned into Rivers

In the town of Mihara, in the southern region of Hiroshima, a drying out in the rain laid bare the devastation caused by showers.

The roads turned into muddy rivers, with soil piled up on each side "The area has become an ocean," said Nobue Kakumoto, 82, a long-time resident

"I'm worried because that I do not know how long it will stay like this. "

Dozens of residents went down to the village to inspire Masanori Hiramoto, a 68-year-old farmer, who did not bother to visit the village. observe the Japanese custom of removing his shoes when he entered his ravaged house, the woven. tatami floor mats carpeted with mud

"I do not even know where to start cleaning, I do not know what is there," he told AFP [19659002] Elsewhere, work crews attempted to clear several small landslides that made them impbadable. Yoshihide Fujitani, a disaster management officer in Hiroshima Prefecture, told AFP: "We are also dealing with evacuees and restoring critical infrastructure like water and sanitation. gas, "he adds

. 19659002] In the west of Okayama Prefecture, rescue operations were underway to evacuate several hundred people, including children and the elderly, including by helicopter

and a nurse Indoors told the local media that there was no electricity and no water and that the food was lacking.

"About 1,000 people were trying to be rescued Sunday morning, but we do not yet have a complete picture of the disaster … is huge," Mutsunari Imawaka, a spokesman for the disaster management office of the prefecture, told AFP

"We are working hard to save them as quickly as possible.Time is running out."

Houses taken away

More than 50,000 rescuers , police and military were mobilized to respond to the disaster, which left whole villages flooded with floods, "I was in a car and mbadive streams of water sprang towards me from the front and from behind, then swallowed the road. "I was just able to escape, but I was terrified," 62-year-old Yuzo Hori told the Mainichi Shimbun daily in Hiroshima on Saturday.

Although the rains started last week, a typhoon hit the ground. Thursday, a construction worker was swept away by floods in western Japan

The number of casualties has risen steadily and conditions have made rescue operations difficult, with some desperate citizens traveling to Twitter for ask for help. The floods halted production in factories in the affected region, with power, water and mobile phone outages.

The disaster is the deadliest in Japan since 2014, when at least 74 people were killed in landslides. caused by torrential downpours in the Hiroshima region.