Severe flooding in nursing home cause deaths in Japan

Fifteen people have reportedly died and nine are missing as heavy rains caused flooding and landslides in the southern island of Kyushu in Japan.

According to details, 14 victims were found in the same flooded nursing home whereas the other was affected by a landslide. Their deaths will be formally certified.

More than 200, 000 people have been ordered to evacuate the area and 10,000 soldiers have been deployed to help the people.

Heavy rains are likely to hit Japan again overnight into Sunday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged people to be on “maximum alert”.

The prefectures of Kumamoto and Kagoshima were worst affected.

Kumamoto’s governor, Ikuo Kabashima, reported to media that the victims at the nursing home had been in a condition of “cardio-respiratory arrest”, a terminology Japanese use before the death is officially certified.

The Meteorological Agency said that such rainfall had never been witnessed in this region before.

A woman, who went to an evacuation center to seek refuge, said that she had never imagined rainfall could be so powerful.

Haruka Yamada, who lives in Ashikita in Kumamoto prefecture, told Kyodo: “I saw large trees and parts of houses being washed away and heard them crashing into something. The air is filled with the smell of leaking gas and sewage.”

According to the NHK broadcaster, eight homes in Takinoue district were washed away.

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