Authorities in the Japanese city of Nagasaki have urged all of its approximately 380,000 residents to evacuate due to heavy rains and an increased risk of landslides, DPA reported, BTA reported.
Officials have raised the alert level for the entire city to one level below the most serious, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. They urged residents to avoid high-risk areas.
The Japan Meteorological Agency warned that more heavy rain was expected in other parts of the main island of Kyushu, raising fears of river overflows and flooding in low-lying areas.
The risk level was also raised in the prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki and Kumamoto, while heavy rain warnings were issued for the smaller island of Shikoku.
Two tropical cyclones also formed south of Japan, the meteorological agency said.
In recent years, Japan has been experiencing increasingly intense rainfall, which scientists link to climate change, DPA reported. Frequent heavy rainfall, in turn, causes more frequent landslides in the mountainous island country.