Residents of the village of Kuma in Kumamoto Prefecture on Friday mourned the victims of deadly torrential rains that struck the prefecture five years ago.
The July 2020 downpours, which caused floods and mudslides, left 67 people dead, including indirect fatalities, and two others missing. In Kuma, 25 lives were lost in the disaster.
Village officials and others observed a moment of silence in front of a floral tribute stand set up in the first-floor lobby of the village hall.
"We will pass on our memories and lessons to the next generation without letting them fade away," Kuma Mayor Koichi Matsutani said in a speech.
Village assembly speaker Harutaka Funato, 74, offered flowers for the victims for the first time. He had been quietly remembering the deceased in his temporary housing after a neighbor was killed due to the heavy rains. But he decided to pay a visit to the flower stand this year.
"I can't keep worrying about it forever," Funato said. "I came to lay flowers to bring closure."
In the village's Konose district, which saw three deaths, former residents who moved to public housing for disaster survivors in and outside Kuma released flowers into the Kawauchi River, a tributary of the Kuma River, which overflowed due to the downpours five years ago.
The village has seen an acceleration in depopulation since the heavy rains. According to a population estimate by the Kumamoto Prefectural Government, Kuma was home to 1,622 people in 773 households as of June 1 this year, down by nearly half from the roughly 3,200 people in about 1,260 households who lived in the village five years before.
The number of village districts with 10 residents or fewer has increased by roughly three times, according to the village office.
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