Japan evacuates 1.3 million people

Over 1.3 million residents on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu were told to flee their homes amid relentless rain Tuesday. The death toll from downpours on the island has risen to 50, local authorities said.
An 87-year-old woman was confirmed dead after being found in her inundated home in Omuta late Monday, bringing the total death toll from torrential rains from Saturday to 50.
Kyodo agency informed that two temporary evacuation centers in the city where about 200 people temporary had stayed were flooded.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a heavy rain emergency warning for Saga, Nagasaki and Fukuoka prefectures on Kyushu on Monday, calling on residents to be on "maximum alert."
The agency lifted the emergency shortly before noon on Tuesday, but it warned of flooding, mudslides, and swollen rivers in wide areas of Japan.
According to the agency, a seasonal rainy front was expected to continue dumping torrential rains on Kyushu and other parts of the country on Tuesday, including flood-stricken areas in the Kumamoto prefecture.
A total of 565 schools were temporarily closed on Tuesday in nine prefectures, including Hiroshima and Shizuoka.
Landslides and flooding caused by heavy rains struck rural areas of Kumamoto over the weekend, leaving 49 people dead and 11 others unaccounted for, local officials said. Severe weather conditions hampered search and rescue operations.
Water outages caused by natural disasters affected more than 2,100 households in Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the government reported, while about 6,500 homes lost electricity in the prefectures of Oita, Kagoshima, and Kumamoto as of Tuesday morning, Kyushu Electric Power said.
Rainfall of up to 250 millimeters was forecast for northern Kyushu and the island of Shikoku and up to 200 millimeters for eastern and central Japan by Wednesday noon, the weather agency said.