Five others remained unaccounted for by nightfall as the weather agency predicted more rain for central and western Japan, warning of the risk of more floods and landslides.

"We discovered the mother and the boy and they were confirmed dead at the hospital," a police official said in the western prefecture of Shimane. "They were found side by side, buried under a rock."

The 11-year-old daughter was earlier pulled out alive from the destroyed house where her 37-year-old mother and her younger brother died.

Another victim, found in Hiroshima prefecture, was a 73-year-old woman buried under mud inside her house. She was the third elderly woman to die this week in flood-hit Hiroshima.

Three bodies were recovered in the central prefecture of Gifu.

Authorities were also searching for an elderly man in Shimane, a woman in Hiroshima and three people still missing in Gifu.

In the city of Kani in Gifu, flood water from a river washed away 28 trucks, and 20 privately owned cars from the parking lot of a transport company.

Nine heavy-duty trucks were seen piling up against an elevated railway bridge with total damage estimated at 300 million yen (3.4 million dollars)," said Ryuji Sakai, a spokesman for the company, Tougi Transport.

"We didn't expect such a flood and there were no warnings at all."

Japan's Self-Defense Forces have used helicopters and boats to aid residents trapped in flooded homes in the region, where large areas of farmland and some towns have been under water for days because of torrential summer rains.

Last year 25 people died in the same region after rains triggered flash floods and landslides, including one that devastated a retirement home.

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