Mayor sorry for not ordering evacuation ahead of Typhoon Wipha

The mayor of a Japanese island devastated by a deadly typhoon apologised yesterday for failing to issue an evacuation order, as rescue workers combed through mountains of debris searching for the missing.

At least 19 deaths have been confirmed from Typhoon Wipha, one day after it swept up Japan's east coast, and about 40 people remained missing, government officials said. Eighteen of the known victims were on the island of Izu Oshima, about 120 kilometres south of Tokyo.

"There is concern that perhaps more lives could have been saved if there had been an evacuation. We have concluded this and must apologise," Mayor Masafumi Kawashima said at a news conference. "It's my deepest regret and I will not forget this."

Some 1,100 rescuers were searching through huge piles of trees and destroyed homes swept downhill by mudslides, shouting in hopes of finding survivors. The search was hampered by mud.

Town officials issued repeated warnings of river flooding early on Wednesday morning, during the worst of the torrential downpour, but stopped short of ordering any areas evacuated.

Initially, Kawashima defended the decision, saying that he had feared a middle-of-the-night evacuation under such harsh conditions could have done more damage than good.