Okayama

After launching the project last year, Hiroshi Kinoshita of the Okayama Folklore Society said the creature could have had religious significance.

The area surrounding the Seto Inland Sea, Japan’s largest inland body of water, constitutes the Setouchi area, represented by the cities of Hiroshima, where the G7 Summit will be held, Okayama, Matsuyama and Takamatsu.

Elsewhere, Saitama and Okayama prefectures posted record daily cases, at 226 and 60, respectively.

She asked if the crowd had fun at their first Okayama show in three years.

Also in Okayama, a nursing home for the elderly was inundated and about 80 people were temporarily stranded on the second floor, while more than 10 people climbed onto the roofs of their homes as water surged in the prefecture.

Although more than a week has passed from the downpour, more than 10 people remain missing in the prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Ehime, Osaka and Nara, according to a tally.

But the Okayama native did it with his usual passion and flair.

Okayama prefecture said a man caught in a landslide died, and six others were missing.

Police in Okayama Prefecture are expected to serve a warrant Wednesday on Kunihiko Katsuta, 39, for the murder of Yukiko Tsutsushio, a third-grade elementary school student, in the city of Tsuyama, the source said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe traveled to Okayama on Wednesday to inspect the extent of the damage and obtain firsthand information about the situation faced by evacuees.

Since the downpour began Thursday, when the weather agency forecast record amounts of rain through Sunday, 37 people have died in Hiroshima, 20 in Ehime and 10 in Okayama.

Some municipalities in Okayama, including Kurashiki and Takahashi, are still finding it difficult to supply drinkable water as purification plants have been submerged by the flooding.

In 1957, when the city established a relationship with Okayama, Japan, it was only the third Sister City relationship in the nation, which had begun the prior year.