100 killed in Japan flood
KUMANO, Japan — Desperate relatives braced for bad news yesterday as rescuers dug through landslides in the wake of severe floods that have killed 100 people and left swathes of central and western Japan under water.
As floods receded, emergency workers were able to reach previously cut-off places where authorities fear they could find more bodies in the wreckage of homes devastated by rivers of mud and debris.
"I have asked my family to prepare for the worst," said Kosuke Kiyohara, 38, as he waited for word of his sister and her two young sons.
"I can't reach her phone," he told AFP, sitting across from a house that had been ripped apart and tossed on its side by a huge landslide.
At the end of last week rivers engorged by more than a metre (three feet) of rain burst their banks, engulfing entire villages and forcing people to rooftops to await evacuation by helicopter.
Hillsides gave way under the weight of water, with deadly landslides blanketing farmland, crushing wooden houses and erasing roads.
On Monday morning, with the sun finally out and temperatures rising, rescue workers dug through mud in a desperate search for survivors, or victims.
Local media put the
death toll at over 90, with dozens more unaccounted for.
Soldiers and other emergency workers were using diggers to clear the crushed cars and mangled homes.
But they were moving carefully, looking as they went for survivors, or the remains of those killed in the disaster.
In one part of Kumano, the nose of a white car was just visible underneath the top floor of a home that had been torn from the rest of the building and swept down a hillside.
Much of the road that once led into the upscale district of a town known for brushmaking was no longer visible, and water was still flowing from the surrounding hillsides around the feet of shellshocked residents.
In neighboring Okayama prefecture, rescue workers flew in helicopters over areas that are still submerged and otherwise unreachable, looking for signs of life.