Emergency in Japan: Deaths from torrential rains increase to 100 | PICTURES Trade | World | Asia



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Rescuers were looking Monday for missing people in mud-covered neighborhoods and among the rubble of houses west of Japan where 100 people died due to torrential rains.

Of these 100 people, 87 are declared dead and 13 are in a state of cardiac and respiratory arrest, said Monday a government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, at a meeting with the press.

This equilibrium could worsen over time

In Kumano City, huge floods of mud have destroyed houses that are nothing more than stacks of wood, noted the AFP journalists

The burning sun was beginning to dry out the mud. The rescuers, helped by construction machinery, shovels and chainsaws, were looking for traces of a dozen missing persons.

"We remove the rubble where we can, we also remove the destroyed houses, otherwise it is impossible to reach the trapped survivors. A soldier explained.

"I would have liked that my sister and her family had already been evacuated," lamented Kosuke Kiyohara in front of the destroyed house of his relatives, who had disappeared. "I told my family to prepare for the worst," he acknowledged

. When they returned to their homes damaged by rain, locals began to realize the magnitude of the disaster. There are whole neighborhoods flooded, vehicles in the middle of craters formed on completely destroyed roads, huge mudslides and bridges destroyed, among other scenes of devastation.

In the city of Kurashiki, in the province of Okayama, no one asks for help "roofs or terraces of houses in the locality, according to observations made from helicopters , said Monday to AFP a rescatista. " 19659010 "the rescuers yesterday they were moved in boats due to the magnitude of the floods, but the water is gradually being removed today and if the level is low enough they will be able to access the areas very affected by the road or on foot, "said a spokesman for Okayama Prefecture's Disaster Management Office

" Today, it is not raining, but we must remain vigilant face-to-face to mud floods, "he insisted.

This is one of the worst disasters of this type in recent years. Japan with a number of casualties that exceeds already the 2014 landslide in Hiroshima, with 74 dead

It is necessary to go back to the passage of two typhoons in August and September 2011 to find a comparable equilibrium (a hundred deaths).

Sunday l & # 39; state of maximum alertness was removed, but the warnings of levels i Later, were maintained.

"Abnormal" weather situation

"Rescue operations they are maintained 24 hours a day," said Sunday to AFP Yoshihide Fujitani, a disaster management officer from the prefecture of & 90 [[[3939Hiroshima

"We are also taking care of the evacuees and we are trying to recover vital infrastructure such as the water and gas network," Fujitani told AFP. "We are doing everything we can."

"This is an abnormal situation in the face of imminent danger, do not approach areas at risk, stay tuned," insisted a meteorological agency official , Yasushi Kajiwara. Press

Precipitation between Friday and Sunday reached record levels at 93 observation points in 14 prefectures

Some 54,000 firefighters, police and military self-defense forces deployed in the field, " making maximum efforts "to save lives", in the words of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Up to 5 million people were given orders to do so. evacuation, but the slogan was not mandatory and sometimes when the water rose It could be more risky to try to leave than to take refuge on a roof.

Some factories (such that Panasonic, Mitsubishi Motors and Mazda) had to stop production in the region., like services like Amazon.

Japan is often crossed by important rainy fronts and typhoons , sometimes fatal, in summer

Source: AFP

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