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KUMANO | Rescuers were struggling on Monday to find missing people in mud-covered neighborhoods and in the rubble of homes in western Japan where 75 people have already died after torrential rains.
In Kumano City, known around the world for its makeup brushes appreciated by the greatest actresses in the world, huge mudslides have taken homes that are no more than heaps of wood.
Dozens of rescuers were busy on the spot to Trying to find the missing people, AFP journalists have found.
The official record of the waterspouts that have been fired for several days over western Japan is still tentative. The media announce 90 dead and 58 missing.
This is one of the most serious disasters of this kind in recent years in Japan, with a number of victims now exceeding that recorded during landslides in Hiroshima in 2014, with 74 deaths
It is now necessary to go back in the annals at the passage of two typhoons in August / September 2011 to find a comparable disaster (a hundred deaths).
The state of alert maximum was lifted everywhere Sunday in the day, but lower-level views are maintained.
Returning to their homes after the end of the rain, residents began to realize the magnitude of the disaster, with neighborhoods drowned, homes upside down, cars lying in craters of totally collapsed roads, gigantic landslides, bridges carried away, and other scenes of desolation. 19659003] "Abnormal" weather situation
"Relief operations are maintained 24 hours a day," Yoshihide Fujitani, a disaster management official from Hiroshima Prefecture, told AFP on Sunday. "We are also taking care of evacuees and trying to rehabilitate critical infrastructure such as the water network and gas distribution," he said. "We are doing our best."
Food is lacking in supermarkets that are no longer supplied.
"This is an abnormal situation," insisted a weather agency official, Yasushi Kajiwara, during A press briefing on Sunday
Rainfall between Friday and Sunday reached record highs in 93 observation points in 14 prefectures.
Some 54,000 firefighters, police and military members of the Self-Defense Forces were deployed on the ground, "doing their utmost to save lives," in the words of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
A rescuer from Kurashiki town in Okayama province told AFP Monday morning that " no one seems to be asking for help "from the rooftops or terraces of this city's buildings, according to observations made by helicopter.
" Rescuers were traveling with boats yesterday because of the sheer scale of rations, but the water is gradually withdrawing today and if the level drops sufficiently, they will be able to access the hard-hit areas by road or on foot, "a spokesman for the management office told AFP by telephone Okayama Prefecture disasters. "It is not raining today, but we must remain vigilant against the mudslides," she said.
Up to 5 million people have been asked to evacuate, but these orders are not binding, and sometimes when the water rises very quickly, it may be more risky to try to escape than to take refuge on the roof.
Factories (Panasonic, Mitsubishi Motors, Mazda) have have been forced to stop production in the region, as well as services like Amazon.
Japan is often crossed by important rainy fronts in addition to the sometimes deadly typhoons that sweep it regularly in summer.
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