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Residents of the Japanese city of Kurume in Fukuoka Prefecture wade through a flooded street
Photo: - / dpa
The Olympic flame has not long gone out.
Japan, like some southern European countries recently, is now suffering from extreme weather conditions: The record-breaking rainfall continues in large areas of the country.
Entire residential areas on the hard-hit southwestern main island of Kyushu have now been flooded.
Rescue workers brought residents who had not left their homes on time to safety with rubber dinghies on Saturday.
Because of the incessant rainfall and flooding, the extent of the damage could not yet be foreseen.
The Meteorological Authority of Japan issued the highest warning level for around 650,000 households in the three prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga and Nagasaki on Kyushu and the Hiroshima prefecture in western Japan.
The residents are asked to get away from possible floods and landslides.
A woman was killed in a landslide in Nagasaki Prefecture, Unzen City.
Rescue workers continued to look for her husband and daughter in the mud.
Precipitation is also expected in the coming days and will spread to the northeast.
According to experts, Japan is increasingly being hit by heavy rainfall as a result of global warming.
As a result, landslides are becoming more and more common in the mountainous country.
cgu / dpa