Six died as rains batter quake-hit southwestern Japan

Six people have been confirm died and a university student was allegedly missing on Wednesday as record-breaking rains battered parts of southwestern Japan still reeling from earthquakes two months ago, setting off flooding and landslides.


Hundreds of thousands people were advised to evacuate a wide swathe of Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island, where 49 people died in earthquakes in April that weakened the ground and left it prone to landslides, NHK national news channel reported.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Kumamoto on Wednesday to kick off campaigning for an election next month for parliament's upper house.

Authorities warned of further landslides in areas where the ground was weakened by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in April and several thousand people are still living in evacuation centres.