BBC News: Nearly two million people have been urged to evacuate their homes amid heavy rainfall in parts of Japan.
Highest-level rain warnings have been issued in a number of prefectures, including Fukuoka and Hiroshima.
One woman has died and her husband and daughter are missing after a landslide destroyed two homes in Nagasaki prefecture.
More than 150 troops, police and firefighters have been sent to help with rescue operations in the area.
“They are carefully searching for the missing residents, while watching out for further mudslides as the heavy rain continues,” a local official told the AFP news agency.
The west of the country is worst affected but heavy downpours are expected across the country in coming days.
In Saga prefecture, a hospital evacuated patients to its upper floors on Saturday after the nearby Rokkaku river overflowed and flooded the building, Kyodo News agency reported, citing local authorities.
In total, non-compulsory evacuation warnings are now in place for more than 1.8 million people across seven prefectures, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.
Yushi Adachi, from Japan’s meteorological agency, described the current rainfall as “unprecedented”.
“It’s highly likely that some kind of disaster has already occurred,” he said.
Local television footage showed submerged roads. Rivers in Saga and Fukuoka have overflowed with water levels still rising, local media reports said.
An official in Kumamoto, south-western Japan, said a 76-year-old man was missing after trying to secure his fishing boat.
The flooding comes just weeks after heavy rain caused landslides and prompted rivers to burst their banks, killing dozens.
Prophetic Link:
“There will soon be a sudden change in God’s dealings. The world in its perversity is being visited by casualties, — by floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, famines, wars, and bloodshed. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power; yet He will not at all acquit the wicked. ‘The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.’ O that men might understand the patience and longsuffering of God! He is putting under restraint His own attributes. His omnipotent power is under the control of Omnipotence. O that men would understand that God refuses to be wearied out with the world’s perversity, and still holds out the hope of forgiveness even to the most undeserving! But His forbearance will not always continue. Who is prepared for the sudden change that will take place in God’s dealing with sinful men? Who will be prepared to escape the punishment that will certainly fall upon transgressors?” Fundamentals of Christian Education, 356.2.