19 Missing As Landslide Engulfs Houses After Heavy Rain In Japan: Official

The landslide occurred at around 10:30 am, a Japan official said, adding that "several houses were swept away" and 200 homes in the area had been left without power.

A huge landslide swept away homes and left 19 people missing at a popular resort town in central Japan on Saturday after days of heavy rain, local officials said. Television footage showed a torrent of mud obliterating some buildings and burying others in Atami, southwest of Tokyo, with people running away 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." A Shizuoka prefecture disaster management official told AFP that "the safety of 19 people is unknown" after the landslide.