A police officer looks into a car buried in mud during a search operation in the aftermath of heavy rains in Kure, Hiroshima prefecture, southwestern Japan, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Search-and-rescue operations are continuing after floods and landslides caused by the rains, and local media said several dozen people were still missing in Japan’s deadliest weather-related disaster in over three decades. (Shingo Nishizume/Kyodo News via AP)

Residents shovelled mud and debris to clear streets so they could get out for food and other supplies Wednesday in areas of western Japan hard hit by landslides and flooding that still swamped some areas. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will meet evacuees at on Wednesday at one of the areas worst-hit by record rains as the death toll rose to 179 and thousands remained stranded in shelters. TOKYO, July 12 — Japanese rescue workers searched the ruins of homes this morning looking for dozens of people still missing after deadly rains that killed nearly 200 people. “We don’t know how long it will take for the recovery,” said Okayama official Imawaka. A similar order was issued Tuesday in the town of Fuchu, also in Hiroshima, after driftwood backed up in a river, causing water to crest over its banks and submerge surrounding neighbourhoods. The government has already said it will set aside around $20 million for the relief effort and Abe said there would be financial support for local governments to help with the reconstruction effort. Around 10,000 people whose homes were buried by landslides or submerged in flood waters are still in shelters. “The roads and water systems are damaged, so it’s hard to predict at this moment.”

And authorities warned against the ongoing risk of landslides, with rain forecast in some areas this morning, as well as heatstroke in other places where temperatures approached 35 degrees celsius. “We have to review what the government can do to reduce the risks.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who cancelled a foreign trip as the death toll rose this week, brushed aside criticism of the response during a trip to Okayama yesterday.
The death toll from heavy rains in Japan rises to 209 and 28 missing.