Helicopters deliver food, relief supplies

Japanese authorities Tuesday airlifted food and essential supplies to typhoon victims in the western region as the death toll from the storm mounted. Thousands of people remained stranded in Nara and Wakayama prefectures, among the worst hit by Typhoon Talas, which brought heavy rains that triggered massive flooding and mudslides in the mountainous region. Many roads have been damaged, cutting off land access to those areas. The death toll from the weekend storm rose to 37, and 54 were reported missing, Kyodo News reported Tuesday quoting a police tally. Officials in Nara prefecture said they had readied 1 ton of water and survival food items, including 3,100 rice meals, to be airlifted by helicopter to the village of Totsukawa, where 12 people were reported dead or missing, Kyodo said. In Wakayama prefecture's Shingu city, authorities prepared to deliver water, dry-cell batteries and other supplies to 26 isolated communities whose residents are mostly the elderly. The weekend storm hit six prefectures, three of them on the worst-hit mountainous Kii Peninsula. Most of those killed or missing in the storm are from Wakayama, CNN reported. More than 16,000 residents were ordered to evacuate from the Kii Peninsula area, the report said. Rescue operations were under way in Wakayama, Mie and Nara prefectures, where more than 9,000 people remained isolated, even as the efforts were hampered by flooded rivers, damaged roads and mudslides, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. The Talas onslaught comes as Japan is recovering from the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck its northeast region, causing thousands of deaths and damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The nuclear crisis at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant has yet to be fully contained.