Your trusted source

The death toll from heavy rain and flooding in southern Japan this week has risen to 15 as rescue workers reached isolated villages where at least six others are missing and feared dead, the Telegraph reports.

Heavy rain warnings are still in place for parts of the southern island of Kyushu on Saturday, days after Typhoon Nanmadol swept across Japan, triggering floods and mudslides that wrecked hundreds of homes, roads and rice terraces.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency says Saturday 12 dead have so far been found in the hardest-hit Asakura city in Fukuoka prefecture and three others in neighboring Oita prefecture.

The government has dispatched some 12,000 Self-Defense Forces, police, firefighters and coast guard personnel for rescue operations. Thousands of rescuers have been fighting through thick mud and battling rain to search for missing and stranded people, with more than 600 believed to still be cut off, according to the Japan Times.