Japan rescuers go house to house as flood toll hits 141

Rescue workers carried out house-to-house searches today in the increasingly unlikely hope of finding survivors after days of deadly floods and landslides that have claimed 141 lives in one of Japan's worst weather-related disasters for decades.

The record downpours that began last week have stopped and receding flood waters have laid bare the destruction that has cut a swathe through the west of the country.

In the city of Kurashiki, the flooding engulfed entire districts at one point, forcing some people to their rooftops to wait for rescue.

By today morning, rescue workers were going door-to-door, looking for survivors -- or victims -- of the disaster.

"It's what we call a grid operation, where we are checking every single house to see if there are people still trapped inside them," an official with the local Okayama prefecture government told AFP. "We know it's a race against time, we are trying as hard as we can."