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Torrential rain storms that triggered flash floods and mudslides in Japan's Kyushu region have left 60 people dead or missing.

Hundreds of thousands have also been evacuated to safer areas.

Lee Seung-jae reports.

Mother Nature's wrath continues to sweep Japan.

Torrential rain in the country's Kyushu region,... in southwestern Japan,... has triggered floods and mudslides.

Authorities say at least 49 people have been confirmed dead,... while eleven others are unaccounted for.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by continued downpours,... with up to 300 millimeters of rain in the forecast through Tuesday

Meteorological authorities in Japan have also issued special heavy rain warnings to three prefectures Nagasaki, Saga, and Fukuoka and the authorities have also issued evacuation orders to 330-thousand citizens.

Such orders have also been issued to 205-thousand people in Kumamoto Prefecture,... and to approximately 35-thousand in Miyazaki and Kagoshima Prefecture,... totaling 550-thousand people across Japan.

With many waiting to be rescued,... the Japanese government has also dispatched around 10-thousand Ground Self-Defense Force personnel to the hardest-hit areas.

More than 2-thousand households have been left stranded,... many of which are home to elderly people.

Helicopters and boats have been rescuing people from their homes where they can.

The flooding has also cut off power and communication lines,... further delaying search and rescue efforts.

At least 58 people have died over several days of flooding. By Wednesday morning, parts of Nagano and Gifu in central Japan were flooded by unremitting downpours.

Footage on NHK television showed swollen water in the Hida River gouging into the embankment, destroying a national highway along the river. In the city of Gero, river water rose to just below a bridge.

In the mountainous town of Takayama, several houses were hit by a mudslide, with uprooted trees and other debris scattered around. It was not immediately known what happened to the residents.

Across Japan, about 3.6m people were advised to evacuate, although evacuation is not mandatory and the number of people who actually took shelter was not provided by authorities.

© Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
A man walks by a collapsed road caused by heavy rain in Kuma, Kumamoto prefecture. Flooding and heavy rains have killed 58 people.

As of Wednesday morning, the death toll from the heavy rains that started over the weekend had risen to 58, most of them from the hardest-hit Kumamoto prefecture.