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TOKYO (Reuters) – The death toll of unpredictable rains in Japan rose to at least 64 on Sunday after their burdens their banks and forced millions of people to their homes, media reports said, at least another day.
"We've never experienced this kind of rain before," an official at the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) told a news conference. "This is a situation of extreme danger."
At least 64 people have been killed and 44 missing, national broadcaster NHK said after the death toll at 49 overnight. Among the missing was a 9-year-old boy believed trapped in his land by a landslide that killed at least three others, one of them a man in his 80s.
"I'm wearing a toy poodle told NHK television.
"We had fled to the second floor but then the water rose, so we went up to the third floor," she said.
Japan's government set up an emergency management center at the prime minister's office and some 54,000 rescuers from the military, police and fire departments were dispatched across a wide swath of southwestern and western Japan.
"Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said," There are still many people missing and others in need of help.
Emergency warnings for severe rain in effect for three prefectures, with 300 mm (11 inches) predicted to fall by Monday morning in the small island of Shikoku.
Evacuation orders remained in place for some 2 million people and another 2.3 million were advised to evacuate. Landslide warnings were issued in a quarter of the nation's prefectures.
'POURING DOWN'
"My husband could not have had a good time, and since it was so much I had not enough courage to go to an evacuation center with two children after dark, "one woman wrote on Twitter, without giving further details.
The rain began late last week as the remnants of a typhoon fed into a rainy forehead, with humid, warm air for the sake of the Pacific making it still more active – a pattern similar to one that is off flooding in southwestern Japan exactly a year ago that killed dozens. The front then remained in one place for an unusually long time, the JMA said.
Roads were closed and services suspended in parts of western Japan. Shinkansen bullet train services, resumed on a limited schedule after they were suspended on Friday.
Automakers including Mazda Motor Corp. ( 7261.T ) and Daihatsu Diesel Manufacturing Co. ( 6023.T ) conditions. They were set to decide later on Sunday for the coming week.
Electronics maker Panasonic Corp. ( 6752.T ) said one plant in Okayama, western Japan, could not be reached for road closures, but it had been closed for the weekend anyway. A decision about next week would be made on Monday.
While the Japanese government monitors weather conditions and warnings from an early stage, the fact that the country is in a state of affairs is becoming more important.
Reforestation policies after World War Two that saw many mountains and replanted with trees.
Additional report by Junko Fujita and Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Paul Tait
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