July 09, 2020: For more than a week, Japan has been battered by floods driven by torrential rains, spurring widespread evacuations and the deaths of at least 58 people by Wednesday. Many people remained missing.

According to the reports, tens of thousands of troops, police officers and other rescue workers have been mobilized to work their way through mud and debris in the hardest-hit towns along the Kuma River — known as the 'raging river' because it is joined by another river just upstream and often floods — in Japan’s southernmost main island, Kyushu.

More flooding and landslides were expected as the rains, some of the heaviest the country has experienced in decades, moved into central Japan. There were reports of swollen rivers, mudslides and damaged homes and roads in two mountainous central prefectures as the authorities issued emergency warnings.

At the peak, as many as 3.6 million people were advised to evacuate, although it wasn’t mandatory and the number who sought shelter was not known. About half of the advisories had been lifted by Wednesday afternoon.