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The Japanese Prime Minister described Sunday as a "race against the clock" the authorities' fight to save the victims of the tragic consequences of exceptional rains that continue to rage violently in western Japan. Already killed 48 people.
"Relief, life saving and evacuations are a race against time," Shinzo Abe said during a crisis meeting in Tokyo with key ministers, while spokesman Government also reported numerous disappearances of people.
About 100 people in the most affected areas were injured, according to the Fire and Natural Disaster Management Agency.
The state of Maximum alert is maintained in three western provinces (Kochi, Ehime and Gifu).
Some 200 people, from infants to elderly, were trapped in a Kurashiki hospital in Okayama prefecture, while water from a nearby river has swept over the area.
"The electricity has been cut off and the water supply has stopped, we are facing shortages of water and food," a nurse at the hospital told NHK.
"This is an abnormal situation in the face of imminent danger, do not approach the areas at risk, be vigilant," insisted an official of the meteorological agency, Yasushi Kajiwara, during a press briefing.
In Mihara town, in the southern Hiroshima region, the roads were turned into muddy rivers, leaving abandoned vehicles here and there, half drowned.
Record rainfall recorded for several days in several regions have led to exceptional floods, landslides and floods, trapping many inhabitants despite evacuation orders given to more than 2 million people, instructions not always respec because it is sometimes already impossible or too dangerous to move.
Some 54,000 firefighters, police and soldiers of the Self-Defense Forces have been deployed on the ground, "doing their utmost to save lives," Abe said. but they face major difficulties in view of the inaccessibility of certain places in the middle of the countryside.
Relief services were trying to save refugee residents on the roofs of their houses largely under water. Television pictures showed them waving white rags to be spotted. Helicopters, boats and other vehicles were mobilized.
There are also many who call for help on social networks by giving their mailing address.
The government, which set up on Sunday a "headquarters of disaster management ", described the situation as" extremely serious ".
– "Swept away by the waters" –
Dozens of houses were totally or partially destroyed and thousands invaded by the water.
Landslides, roads and bridges were still difficult to count ransacked or even carried away. Thick, muddy waves swept through whole neighborhoods totally drowned, according to television images.
"I was in my car and suddenly the water came in front and behind engulfing the road. to escape, but I was afraid, "testified to the Mainichi newspaper Yuzo Hori, who was in the region of Hiroshima (southwest).
" My house was washed away and completely destroyed ", Toshihide Takigawa also reported in Hiroshima.
Precipitation exceeded one meter in a hundred hours in several regions, with the meteorological agency estimating that such levels are only rarely achieved in several decades. She described the rains as "terrible" and estimated that they would last until Sunday.
Japan is often traversed by large rainy fronts in addition to the sometimes deadly typhoons that sweep it regularly in the summer.
Every year, deadly landslides are recorded in the archipelago. Some 72 deaths were reported in Hiroshima in 2014, and some 15 people died in the north in 2016 after pbading a typhoon
bur-hih-si-kap / am
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