Wed 28 August 2019:
Nearly a million more people were advised to leave their homes after the country’s weather agency raised the alert to its highest level for parts of northern Kyushu.
The emergency warning is issued “if there is a significant likelihood of catastrophes”.
Officials confirmed two deaths, one in western Saga prefecture where a man was found in a car that had been swept away. A second man died in Fukuoka as he tried to escape from a car trapped in rising floodwaters.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said a third person, in Saga, was in a state of “cardiorespiratory arrest” — a term usually employed by Japanese officials to indicate a person’s death before it is officially confirmed by a doctor.
“There are many reports of damage in different areas due to flooding of rivers, landslides, and submerged houses, and there is a possibility of serious damage occurring in the coming hours,” Suga added.
Japanese authorities regularly urge people to take evacuation orders seriously, particularly after disastrous heavy rains last summer in Japan’s west killed more than 200 people.
Many of the deaths were blamed on the fact that evacuation orders were issued too late and some people failed to follow them. Entire neighbourhoods were buried beneath landslides or submerged in floodwaters during the disasters.
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