Authorities lifted “special” heavy rain warnings for the hardest hit prefectures of Fukuoka and Oita, although other warnings, such as for rain, landslides and flooding, remained in place. Parts of Fukuoka, on the south-western island of Kyushu, were hit by 593 millimetres of rain in the 48 hours to 9:00am on Friday (local time), well over the rainfall of a usual July, the meteorological agency said. Tens of thousands of people were instructed to evacuate though only a fraction of those advised to leave actually did, according to the local disaster management agency’s website.
Severe flooding on the Japanese island of Kyushu has caused seven deaths with twenty people unaccounted for.