TOKYO -Rescue workers and Japanese troops waded through sludge yesterday to search for victims of mudslides in Japan's deadliest typhoon in more than a decade that ripped across the country, killing 63 and leaving 25 missing.
Typhoon Tokage, the record eighth typhoon to hit Japan this year, unleashed towering waves and rapid mudslides that demolished homes and flooded dozens of communities when the storm slammed into western Japan Wednesday.
Tokage, which means lizard in Japanese, headed east into the Pacific Ocean yesterday after losing power, leaving clear blue skies in its wake while rescue workers combed the sea for victims feared washed away in the typhoon.
Tsutomu Mukai, who lives on the small island of Awaji 279 miles west of Tokyo, said a mudslide buried his home and killed his 72-year-old mother.
We panicked. We had no time to escape
Mukai, 50, told broadcaster TV Asahi. I called out 'Mother are you alive?
' but there was no answer.
Powerful gusts uprooted huge trees, caused flash floods, submerged cars to their windows and crumbled entire hillsides in landslides across southern and central Japan. Delivery trucks, tipped over by winds, lay on their sides.
By yesterday evening, the death toll had risen to 63, and 25 others still were unaccounted for, the National Police Agency said. Injuries totaled 273.
Crews rescued a tour group of 36 senior citizens and their bus driver early yesterday after a river overflowed and flash floods nearly submerged their bus in the city of Maizuru in Kyoto prefecture, or state. The group spent the night on the roof of the bus as fast-moving waters delayed help.
We called to one another to keep moving and to stay awake
one unidentified passenger told public broadcaster NHK. I was so relieved when the lifeboat came.
More than 23,210 homes were flooded and hundreds of others ripped apart or buried, Fire and Disaster Management Agency spokesman Hideyuki Aoki said. More than 13,000 people across the country were staying at temporary shelters, officials said.
Workers in southwestern Okayama prefecture found the bodies of elderly people who had been among the missing after a mudslide buried homes, prefectural government spokesman Tatsuya Sugita said.
A landslide in western Kyoto prefecture left two elderly women dead in their homes, a police spokesman said. A 70-year-old man living in the same village had drowned, he said.
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