Photo/Illutration Kazuo Arita’s home is filled with mud again on July 25 after more torrential rain hit Kuma village in Kumamoto Prefecture following downpours that wreaked havoc on residents earlier this month. (Jin Nishioka)

More misery returned to villagers hit hard by torrential rain in Kuma, Kumamoto Prefecture, three weeks ago as their homes were inundated again with mud and water amid heavy downpours.

On the morning of July 25, the first floor of many homes and a number of vehicles in the Kiyanosumi settlement of Kuma were found filled by mudslides by returning residents.

“I am deeply disappointed,” said Kazuo Arita, when he saw his home’s first floor partially buried in mud, ruining his efforts to return to normalcy as fast as possible.

After he was forced to evacuate in the torrential rain that pounded the village on July 4, Arita has returned home many times to clean up. But the damage brought by the heavy downpours on July 24 meant that his efforts were for naught.

According to the Kuma village hall, 20 to 30 homes in Kiyanosumi and two other settlements in Kuma were inundated with water.

The torrential rain earlier this month claimed 65 lives in the prefecture, including 25 in Kuma.

In Nagasaki Prefecture, two people died and another person was injured in a landslide near the Todorokikyo gorge, a noted scenic spot in the city of Isahaya, on July 25, following intensive downpours early on July 24.

The dead were a woman in her 40s and her 8-year-old daughter. The woman’s other daughter, who is a teenager, was injured but was conscious, according to police.

They were visiting the site from Nagasaki, where they lived, on a sightseeing trip with the woman’s husband and son. The husband and the son were not caught up in the landslide. The husband reported the incident to the fire department around 3:30 p.m.

A hillside stretching about 20 meters across and about 10 meters long collapsed, burying part of the recreation trail that runs 30 meters down to the valley from a restaurant on the road. The mother and the two daughters were discovered near the bottom of the valley.

The Japan Meteorological Agency reported that the rainfall in Isahaya in July reached 931.5 millimeters by the evening of July 25, more than double of a normal year.

The deluge in the early hours of July 24 measured 50.5 mm an hour, likely weakening the ground, according to the agency.

“When I went outside after I heard a roar, there was cloud of dust, and trees and electricity poles were toppled,” a worker at the restaurant near the road said of the landslide. “It happened in a flash.”

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