Japanese rescuers yesterday continued their search for victims of freak rains that have triggered floods and landslides across wide swathes of Kyushu and left at least 18 people dead and hundreds of others displaced, public broadcaster NHK reported.
About 1,900 policemen and soldiers, using heavy machinery, braved the rain and grappled with debris of driftwood and mud that have cut off roads and clogged flooded homes.
Authorities have warned of more heavy rains and potential landslides. The downpour has been caused by a low pressure over the Pacific that has sent warm, moist air into Japan’s seasonal rainy front.
Photo: AFP
In Fukuoka and neighboring Oita, the hardest hit areas, 18 people have been killed and 14 have been injured, while about 570 have been left in the state of isolation and more than 20 still unaccounted for, NHK said.
The government was doing its “utmost” to recover those missing or stranded, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a rare weekend press conference.
“Considering the feelings of those whose families are missing, I want to rescue as soon as possible,” Kiyoharu Kawano of the Ground Self-Defense Force said.
Thousands of people have been evacuated to makeshift shelters in school gyms and public buildings.
Local residents tackled cleanup efforts with a struggle.
“It’s tough, it’s tough,” said an elderly man, who was pushing a wheelbarrow in the heavy rain, carrying mud out of an old wooden ramen restaurant.
The city of Asakura was hit by more than 600mm of rain since it started pouring on Wednesday, and Hita was pounded by nearly 450mm of rain during the same period, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, warning of yielding ground.
The agency said the rainy front was forecast to bring 120mm of rain in the northern Kyushu region by noon today, and 100mm of rain in the neighboring Chugoku region in western Japan.
Additional reporting by AFP
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS