Nearly 100 dead and 58 missing in Japan

Tokyo .- Torrential rains in southwestern Japan have left at least 93 people dead and 58 missing, one of the country's worst natural disasters in recent years, authorities said.

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The record rains recorded since Thursday in the Japanese archipelago have mainly affected the prefectures of Hiroshima and Japan. Ehime, where Floods and landslides caused by the rains have devastated thousands of homes and left several populations completely isolated.

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Effective Self-Defense Forces (Army), police and firefighters continue today relief operations Refugees on the roofs and roofs of the buildings that were flooded, while the search for 58 missing continues, according to the NHK state chain.

In Hiroshima (west), at least 39 people died in accidents related to torrential rain and 3 others were wounded gravity, while in Ehime (Shikoku island, southwest), there are had 22 deaths, according to the latest data provided by the representatives of the affected localities.

Deaths were also recorded in ten other prefectures in the central and western part of the Japanese archipelago since the start of the rains, which exceeded a cumulative level of 1,600 millimeters in the southern, western and central parts of the island. l & # 39; archipelago.

Japanese authorities have recommended the evacuation of 5.9 million citizens from 19 prefectures during the weekend, and the day before, more than 30,000 people spent the night in shelters, according to data from the government.

Precipitation caused flooding of rivers that flooded entire populations, reaching heights of up to three meters and causing serious damage to buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, as evidenced by the impressive images collected by the media

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has already removed the maximum level of alert in the affected areas, while maintaining warnings for floods and landslides in several of the affected areas.

It is to be feared that the death toll will continue to increase in the coming days as access to isolated areas improves, which would make the weather disaster the worst since 2011, when typhoon Talas left 98 dead and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism uses drainage trucks to extract water from overgrown areas, such as Mabicho District (Okayama), where 4,600 homes were submerged, although the task could take two weeks to complete.

The rains also resulted in the suspension of 56 rail lines in the south-west of the country, in addition to the closure of many roads, and forced large companies such as Mazda and Toyota to suspend the production of several of their mills in the United States. punished areas. by the catastrophe