Tropical storm talas kills 39 in Japan

Tropical storm Talas has left 39 people dead and 55 missing, mainly in western Japan. The Self-Defense Forces have been mobilized to rescue thousands of people stranded in the worst-hit areas. The large and slow-moving typhoon dumped record amounts of rain in western Japan over the weekend, Japan''s NHK website reported Tuesday. Wakayama Prefecture suffered the worst damage. At least 26 people were killed in the prefecture alone, while 34 are missing. As of Tuesday morning, at least 4,300 were stranded in 41 communities in Wakayama and its neighboring prefectures of Nara and Mie. More than 2,200 people are marooned in Wakayama''s Nachi Katsuura Town, where roads have been cut off by the flooded Nachi River. Other stranded communities in the prefecture have lost phone communications. In Wakayama, Nara and Mie, nearly 26,000 households have been left without power. The storm has destroyed at least 83 houses in seven prefectures, while more than 16,000 homes have been inundated in at least 19 prefectures. Talas has moved off to the Sea of Japan where it has been downgraded to a low pressure system. But evacuation advisories were still in effect to about 22,000 households across Japan as of Tuesday morning, due to the lingering effects of the storm.