The Meteorological Agency temporarily issued a heavy rain emergency warning for the city of Kirishima in Kagoshima Prefecture on Friday, calling for the highest level of caution against landslides and river flooding.
The heavy rain emergency warning was issued at 5 a.m. and was downgraded to a heavy rain warning at 1:30 p.m.
Local authorities issued the highest-level warning on the country's five-tier disaster alert system for the city and some other parts of Kagoshima.
A linear precipitation zone, or a band of cumulonimbus clouds that causes massive rainfall, occurred intermittently in the prefecture.
Two women were sent to a hospital while conscious after a house collapsed in the Kagoshima city of Aira. One house was flooded in the city of Satsumasendai.
In Kirishima, one house collapsed. Two people were rescued after two trucks fell off a damaged bridge.
About 40 people, including children, are believed to be isolated at a campsite in the city due to road damage.
In Mizobe, a district in Kirishima, heavy rain of 107.5 millimeters was recorded in an hour until 3 a.m., where rainfall over 12 hours until 4:50 a.m. reached 483 mm, a record for the area. Makinohara, also in Kirishima, had record rainfall of 495 mm over 12 hours until 6:10 a.m.
The risk of flooding in the city's Amori River increased temporarily.
"We hope people will be on alert because the risk of disaster is expected to remain high," Shuichi Tachihara, director of the meteorological agency's Forecast Division, said at a press conference.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, speaking to reporters, said, "We'll take all possible measures to protect the safety of lives."
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