As search efforts continue for 21 missing people following a large mudslide that hit a spa resort town in central Japan last weekend, experts and local authorities suspect improper accumulation of soil led to the fatal calamity.
Local authorities say an estimated 54,000 cubic meters of soil which had been brought to a mountainside by a real estate management firm exacerbated the massive mudslide on July 3 in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, resulting in the deaths of nine people confirmed as of Friday.
Some 56,000 cubic meters of soil in total, mostly the soil left by the company, collapsed into a nearby river, traveling a distance of about 2 kilometers. Around 130 houses and buildings were destroyed or damaged.