Floods kill 50 in Japan

Emergency services in western Japan were “racing against time” to rescue people stranded by devastating floods and landslides that have killed at least 50 people, with more torrential rain forecast.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued its second-highest emergency warning for heavy rain and landslides over vast swathes of the country ’s southwest and said “risks are rising ” nationwide.

At least 50 deaths have been confirmed in the rains that began early Saturday, top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, but the toll is expected to rise, with two more feared dead and over a dozen reported missing.

“We are racing against time,” Yutaro Hamasaki, an official in the hardest – hit region of Kumamoto, told AFP