Almost 20 people missing and 2 dead after mudslide wipes out homes in Japan's Atami City
Hundreds of rescuers began sweeping the hillside for survivors early on Sunday after a torrent of black mud crashed through the city a day earlier. Several houses were swept away by the mudslide, which followed heavy rain. Atami has had more rainfall in the first three days of July than it usually sees in the whole month.
Video posted on social media on Saturday showed mud plummeting down a mountain in the prefecture of Shizuoka, weaving through the city of Atami towards the sea. A resident said he heard a "horrible sound" and fled as the landslide engulfed everything in its path.
"We are trying our best to search for survivors as quickly as possible while carrying out the operation very carefully as it is still raining," a local official said. The weather has been similar in neighbouring Kanagawa prefecture.
Japan is a mountainous and densely populated country, and landslides are not unusual, says the Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo. But there is growing evidence that climate change makes these sorts of extreme weather events more frequent and more destructive, our correspondent adds. According to a resident, the mudslide struck at 10:30 local time on Saturday (01:30 GMT). One witness told national broadcaster NHK: "I heard a horrible sound and saw a mudslide flowing downwards as rescue workers were urging people to evacuate. So I ran to higher ground."Another resident, Chieko Oki, told AFP: "The big electricity pylons here were shaking all over the place and no sooner had I wondered what was going on than the mudslides were already there."
One man could only escape by climbing a ladder." The mudslide came really close, right in front of my house. I could hear it coming before I saw it. I couldn't get away, so I climbed up a ladder," he told NHK. Another man described hearing an "unimaginable sound". "I knew it was a landslide. It's been constantly raining for three days; it's been steady rather than a sudden downpour," he said.
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