Rescuers in Japan picked through mud and splintered houses on Thursday after a typhoon that killed at least 19 people, as hopes faded for dozens not seen since a landslide engulfed their homes.
Hundreds of police, firefighters and troops searched through the night in an area where buildings were swallowed when a mountainside collapsed.
Typhoon Wipha, dubbed the strongest in a decade, never actually made landfall as it surged past Japan, but violent winds and torrential rain set off mudslides that buried neighbourhoods on Oshima.
At least 18 people died and 35 were still missing on the island, which lies 120 kilometres south of the Japanese capital, a local official and media said.
One woman died in western Tokyo, police have said.
On Oshima, about 15 police officers spent the morning using chainsaws and shovels to free the body of an elderly woman buried in mud and the smashed remains of a wooden building.
