Japan quake-tsunami disaster death toll likely to pass 1,000
Tokyo: More than 1,000 people probably died in the massive quake and tsunami disaster that devastated large parts of northern Japan's Pacific coast, Kyodo News agency said early on Saturday.
The news agency report came as grim updates indicating appalling loss of life kept emerging from along the hard-hit east coast of northern Honshu Island, where the monster wave destroyed more than 3,000 homes.
The National Police Agency said 137 people were confirmed dead and 531 were missing - while police in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, separately said 200 to 300 bodies had been found on the shore.
Fears rose for greater losses as reports came in of a ship with 100 people swept away, two trains missing, and a dam break flooding more homes.
The defence ministry said about 1,800 homes in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, were destroyed, while in Sendai authorities said 1,200 houses were toppled by the tsunami.
The small town of Ofunato further north reported 300 house collapsed or swept away.
More than 80 fires blazed in and around Tokyo and in the Iwate, Miyagi, Akita and Fukushima prefectures, Kyodo reported, quoting Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
The monster quake was the strongest recorded in the seismically unstable archipelago, located on the ‘Pacific Rim of Fire’.
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