HOUSE FOR SURVIVORS; FLOOD TOLL 141

KURASHIKI: Rescue workers carried out house-to-house searches on Tuesday in the increasingly unlikely hope of finding survivors after days of deadly floods and landslides that have claimed 141 lives in one of Japan's worst weatherrelated disasters for decades.

The record downpours that began last week have stopped and receding flood waters have laid bare the destruction that has cut a swathe through the west of the country.

In the city of Kurashiki, the flooding engulfed entire districts at one point, forcing some people to their rooftops to wait for rescue.

By on Tuesday morning, rescue workers were going door-to-door, looking for survivors -- or victims -- of the disaster.

"It's what we call a grid operation, where we are checking every single house to see if there are people still trapped inside them," an official with the local Okayama prefecture government said. "We know it's a race against time, we are trying as hard as we can."

Hideto Yamanaka was leading a team of around 60 firefighters dispatched from outside the prefecture searching homes.

"I'm afraid elderly people who were living alone may have failed to escape," said Yamanaka, 53. "Physically weak people may have been late in getting out when it suddenly started raining hard, swamping the area," he said.

In the Mabi district of Kurashiki, the water left behind a fine yellow silt that has transformed the area into moonscape. Cars driving through kicked up clouds of dust.

People walking around wore medical masks or covered their mouths with small towels to protect themselves against the particulates.