'Unprecedented' rain strands at least 1,000, kills at least 66 in Japan

KURASHIKI, Japan (Reuters) – Unprecedented rains that have been reduced to at least 66 people in the western world of Kurashiki on Sunday, including about 100 at a hospital, with rescuers banks.

Kurashiki, with a population of just under 500,000, has been hit hard by the torrential rains that pounded some parts of western Japan with three times the usual precipitation for a normal July.

Television shown people, patients and staff, waiting to be rescued at a Mabi Memorial Hospital, while many cars floated in a muddy water and was rescued by an elderly care facility.

The overall death toll of the rains in Japan rose to at least 66 on Sunday from 49 days after floodwaters forced millions of people from their homes, media reports and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

Another 60 were missing, NHK national broadcaster said, and more was left to some other day.

The rain set off the landslides and flooded rivers, trapping many people in their houses or on rooftops.

"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."

Among the missing was a 9-year-old boy believed to be trapped in his land by a landslide that killed him at least three others, including a man in his 80s.

"I'm wearing a toy poodle told NHK. "

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.

EVACUATION ORDERS

Emergency warnings for severe rain in 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 Japan's prefectures.

"I did not have enough courage to go to an evacuation center after two children after dark," one woman wrote on Twitter, without giving further details.

The rain began late last week as a remix of a typhoon fed into a rainy front, with a humid, warm air from the Pacific making it still more active 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 Motor Coated Operations at several plants on Saturday. 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, it said.

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.