Rescue teams are still searching for more than 50 people missing after a typhoon pounded western Japan, leaving at least 37 people dead.
Torrential rain brought by Typhoon Talas caused rivers to swell and triggered floods and landslides that swept away buildings, homes and roads.
The typhoon made landfall on Saturday and is the deadliest since an October 2004 storm killed nearly 100 people.
Police and firefighters resumed a search for the missing early on Monday, warning that the number of victims was set to rise as the continued threat of landslides and damaged access routes hampered relief efforts.
In Nachikatsuura town, a railway bridge was swept into a river, while TV footage showed splintered trees, crushed houses and cars tossed onto walls and buildings by the floodwaters that inundated entire neighbourhoods.
The daughter of Nachikatsuura town mayor Shinichi Teramoto was killed as the official ran disaster relief operations on Sunday and his wife was also missing. His house was destroyed by a torrent of water.
The Yomiuri daily said the Talas weather system dumped 1.8 metres of rain on a village in Nara prefecture for five days through to Sunday, more than Tokyo's annual average rainfall.
By Sunday, Talas had been downgraded to a tropical storm after it moved over Japan and into the Sea of Japan, the Meteorological Agency said, but risks of further landslides posed a threat to rescue and recovery efforts.
Television footage showed massive landslides crushing wooden houses in mountain communities, with muddy water submerging streets and washing away wooden debris and cars.
In Wakayama and Nara prefectures, officials told AFP more than 1300 people were staying at evacuation centres with about 7000 households being asked to flee.
