At least two people have been killed and about 20 others are missing in huge floods that are surging through southern Japan, with hundreds of thousands of people ordered or urged to flee.
Unprecedented torrential rain has caused rivers to burst their banks, sweeping away roads and houses, and destroying schools.
Thousands of soldiers and others were scrambling today to reach people cut off by torrents of swirling water or threatened by landslides, and had rescued 250 people, the Government said.
“We are in an extremely serious situation,” Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said, warning of the danger of collapsing hillsides and adding “many people are still missing”.
More than 50 centimetres (20 inches) of rain deluged parts of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, over 12 hours on Wednesday, the meteorological agency said.