The weather continues to be the news.

While dozens of people have died as a blistering heatwave spread across half of the US, Japan is suffering from the effects of record rains in the southwestern area .The death toll from the rains rose to at least 24 people with eight still missing.

Three days of massive downpours have  triggered landslides and flooding that forced  a quarter of a million to evacuate and disrupted transportation on the southern main island of Kyushu.

 The severe weather conditions are now spreading to the country's old capital Kyoto on the main island of Honshu.Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and many of them are staying in evacuation centres.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has warned of further rain and landslides.

In Fukuoka prefecture alone, about 190,000 people from 65,000 households were issued the order, with the entire area of the cities of Yanagawa, Yame and Miyama to be evacuated