Several were missing after heavy rains triggered a landslide in Japan‘s central Shizuoka region on Saturday. 

“The safety of 19 people is unknown” after the landslide, a Shizuoka prefecture official in charge of disaster management told AFP.

The landslide occurred around 10:30 am on Saturday. “Several houses were swept away” and 200 homes in the area had been left without power, an Atami city official said, AFP reported. 

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The local government has requested military assistance for a rescue mission.

Meanwhile, a video of the landslide showed a torrent of mud obliterating some buildings and burying others, with people running helter-skelter as it crashed over a hillside road.

“I heard a horrible sound and saw a mudslide flowing downwards as rescue workers were urging people to evacuate. So I ran to higher ground,” a leader of a temple near the disaster told public broadcaster NHK.

“When I returned, houses and cars that were in front of the temple were gone.”

Atami is in the largely rural Shizuoka region and is around 90 kilometres from Tokyo. It is famous as a hot spring resort.

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The landslide was triggered by heavy rains in the region that saw rainfall of 313 millimetres in just 48 hours up to midnight on Saturday — above the monthly average of 242.5 millimetres in July, local media reported. 

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Shinkansen bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka were also temporarily stopped due to the heavy rains. Other local trains in affected areas were also halted.