67 found dead as Typhoon clean-up begins

The death toll from Japan’s deadliest typhoon in more than a decade rose to 67 today as rescue workers digging through sludge from mudslides found four more bodies and the nation tried to assess the extent of damage. Twenty-one people were still missing.

Typhoon Tokage, the record eighth typhoon to hit Japan this year, ripped through the country earlier this week with high waves and rapid mudslides, demolishing homes and flooding dozens of communities in western Japan before losing power and disappearing over the Pacific Ocean.

Rescue workers combed the sea and flooded towns today for the missing feared washed away in the typhoon.

The death toll rose by four to 67 and 21 others were still unaccounted for, the National Police Agency said. A total of 281 people have been injured.

In Kyoto, western Japan, a rescue crew recovered the body of a 71-year-old man reported missing in a mudslide yesterday.

In the nearby state of Hyogo, the body of a 34-year-old man was dug up from mud that crushed his home, and a 66-year-old man was found dead underneath his collapsed house. At another site in the state, rescue crews recovered the body of a 37-year-old man on a street as floods subsided.

Nationwide, more than 23,210 homes were flooded and hundreds of others ripped apart or buried, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. More than 13,000 people across the country were staying at temporary shelters, officials said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the government had set up a task force to support the rescue and clean-up operation, and disaster and land ministers would visit Kyoto and Hyogo, among the hardest-hit areas, later today.

Tokage was the deadliest storm in Japan since September 1988, when 84 people died in a nearly continuous two-week spell of typhoons, said Fire and Disaster Management Agency spokesman Yoshikazu Nishiwaki.

Japan was still recovering from Typhoon Ma-on, which killed six people earlier this month, when Tokage hit. The country suffered 22 deaths from Typhoon Meari in late September.

This year’s typhoons have far outstripped the previous post-war record of six, set in 1990. The storms have left nearly 220 people dead or missing, the largest casualty tally since 1983.