Updated July 08, 2017 16:27:55

Photo: Debris and a car which were swept by heavy rain are seen in Asakura, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. (Reuters/Issei Kato)

The death toll from heavy rain and flooding in southern Japan has risen to 15, officials said, as rescue workers reached isolated villages where at least 14 others are missing and feared dead.

Heavy rain warnings are still in place for parts of the southern island of Kyushu on Saturday, days after Typhoon Nanmadol swept across Japan, triggering floods and mudslides that wrecked hundreds of homes, roads and rice terraces.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that 12 people have died in Fukuoka prefecture and three others in neighbouring Oita prefecture.

Photo: Landslides have already caused significant damage to many areas, and authorities warned more were possible. (AP/Kyodo: Ryosuke Ozawa)

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said 12,000 troops, firefighters and other rescuers continued searching for the missing, clearing debris off roads and delivering fresh water and food supplies for the displaced at a school gymnasium.

They have reached most of the previously inaccessible villages, Mr Suga said.

Nearly 1,000 residents were rescued over the past two days, but dozens are still believed to be stranded. The operation has been slowed by mudflows and floodwaters as the rain continued.

Parts of Fukuoka, on the south-western island of Kyushu, were hit by 593 millimetres of rain in the 48 hours to 9:00am on Friday (local time), well over the rainfall of a usual July, the meteorological agency said.

In the hardest-hit Asakura city in Fukuoka, the bodies of a woman, her daughter and a grandson were found on Friday on the first floor of their house that was crushed by a mudslide, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.

"At first, it wasn't raining that much," said Sumie Umeyo, a resident of Asakura in south-central Fukuoka.

"But they spoke of record-breaking rain and it started raining heavily, then they began closing the roads.

"We looked outside and the roads were like rivers."

Footage showed inundated rice fields and collapsed homes. Roads and bridges were damaged, covered with broken trees washed down from the mountainside.

Photo: Some of those stranded had to be rescued by helicopter. (Reuters/Kyodo)

Hundreds of people in remote villages were being airlifted by military helicopters while soldiers waded through floodwater carrying elderly people on their backs.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said Fukuoka and Oita experienced unprecedented amounts of rain. The rain was caused by a low pressure area over the Pacific that fed warm, moist air into Japan's seasonal rainy front.

The country's royal family postponed the formal announcement of Princess Mako's engagement to a college classmate on Saturday out of consideration for the suffering of people in the affected areas, palace officials said. A new date has yet to be decided.

AP

Topics: floods, disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, weather, japan, asia

First posted July 08, 2017 16:03:26