An early morning mudslide April 11 sent tons of rocks, trees and dirt tumbling down a mountainside in the Yabakei district of Nakatsu, Oita Prefecture.
The victim was identified as Yoshinori Iwashita, 45, by his relatives. His body was pulled from the debris around 1:15 p.m. The landslide swallowed three homes and damaged another.
The Oita prefectural government requested assistance from the Self-Defense Forces to search for the missing people in the Yabakei district of Nakatsu.
An evacuation order has been issued for eight nearby households comprising 19 residents.
The missing people range in age from 21 to 90.
The landslide occurred around 3:40 a.m. in a community near a mountain trail that connects with a trunk road. Two residents of one house caught in the torrent of falling rocks, trees and dirt that stripped a huge chunk of mountainside bare managed to escape unaided.
Of the four houses affected, only one is visible, and the remainder are buried by the debris, according to an employee of a construction company who arrived at the scene at the request of the Nakatsu city government.
"It will take a lot of time to find people," the man said, citing the huge amount of debris.
According to the municipal government's fire department, no rain was falling in the area when the disaster took place.
One resident heard the earth rumbling, according to a woman who lives in the area.
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