'State of emergency’
Rains strand at least 2,000, 81 are killed in country’s western city
An aerial photo shows flooding in Kurashiki, Okayama prefecture on Sunday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned of a “race against time” to rescue flood victims amid record rains that have killed at least 69 people
The death toll from torrential rain and landslides in western Japan rose to 81 people on Sunday, with dozens still missing after more than 2,000, temporarily stranded in the city of Kurashiki, were rescued, with rescuers using helicopters and boats after rivers surged over their banks.
Kurashiki, with a population of just under 500,000, has been hit hardest by the torrential rains that pounded some parts of western Japan, causing the highest death toll since 2014.
Scores of patients, some still in their pajamas, and nurses were rescued from the isolated Mabi Memorial Hospital in boats rowed by members of Japan’s Self Defence Forces. “I’m most grateful to rescuers,” said Shigeyuki Asano, a 79-year-old patient who spent a night without electricity or water. “I feel so relieved that I am now liberated from such a bad-smelling, dark place,” said Asano.
A city official said 170 patients and workers had been evacuated from the hospital and another 130 people, including 70 patients, were waiting to be rescued.
Television footage showed a massive rescue operation, with some 1,850 people isolated in the city, according to public broadcaster NHK. Kyodo news reported that most people had been rescued in the city by 1400 JST.
The overall death toll from the rains in Japan rose to at least 69 on Sunday after floodwaters forced several million people from their homes, media reports and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
The death toll is the highest caused by water disasters since 2014 when 77 people were killed in heavy rain which set off landslides in Hiroshima in western Japan.
Another 61 were missing, NHK said, and more rain was set to hit some areas for at least another day.
The rain set off landslides and flooded rivers, trapping many people in their houses or on rooftops.
Among the missing was a 9-year-old boy believed trapped in his house by a landslide that killed at least three others, including a man in his 80s.
Japan’s government set up an emergency management centre 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.