Heavy rains have eased in southern Japan, but authorities maintained evacuation orders for more than a million people, warning against a risk of more landslides, which have killed two people.
For about a week some areas of the southernmost main island of Kyushu have received as much as 1000mm of rain, or more than double the usual volume for all of July, public broadcaster NHK said.
As the rains shifted towards central and eastern Japan on Thursday, NHK warned Kyushu residents not to rush home as the landslide danger persists. The Yomiuri daily newspaper said 11,353 people had flocked to evacuation centres.
The resident of a home razed in a landslide on Thursday morning, a woman in her 80s, was killed, Kyodo news agency said.
A woman in her 70s in the prefecture of Kagoshima in southern Kyushu died this week in another landslide.
The government was criticised for its slow response in July last year when heavy rains in Kyushu triggered landslides and floods, killing more than 200 people in Japan's worst weather disaster in 36 years
