The Mainichi Japan Daily news
written by Staff
Tuesday March 15, 2011
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The number of those confirmed dead or who remain unaccounted for following Friday's catastrophic earthquake in Japan has exceeded 6,000, a police tally showed Tuesday.
The National Police Agency said 2,475 people were confirmed dead while 3,611 were missing as of noon, but many unidentified bodies have been detected in quake-hit coastal areas, inevitably raising the death toll.
The agency has identified 1,060 bodies so far, of which around 420 were returned to their families.
Thousands of survivors are believed to be cut off at places where they have taken refuge, with around 1,300 people found stranded on the island of Oshima, Miyagi Prefecture, according to local authorities.
Some 7,000 to 8,000 people have taken shelter at schools but been unable to receive relief goods, they said.
Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai told a press conference Monday evening that fuel shortages at hospitals and in devastated coastal areas are the biggest problem so far.
Many hospitals cannot cope with seriously injured patients due to a lack of medicines, while the increase in the number of recovered bodies has overwhelmed local officials.
They have not been able to secure enough space for morgues and coffins, while the continuing blackout has made it impossible to create dry ice to pack the bodies, according to the officials.
Concerns over nuclear hazards caused by the magnitude 9.0 quake have grown further, with radiation feared to have leaked after part of a container vessel was apparently damaged by an explosion at a reactor at a Fukushima nuclear plant Tuesday morning.
The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that radiation levels at the plant shot up after the apparent blast at 6:10 a.m., and the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. ordered some workers at the site to temporarily evacuate the area.
The situation has triggered fears that the problem could develop into a critical "meltdown" situation, prompting Prime Minister Naoto Kan to urge people living between 20 and 30 kilometers of the plant to stay indoors.
"The radiation level has risen substantially. The risk that radiation will leak from now on has risen," Kan said.
The blast at the No. 2 reactor appears to be a hydrogen explosion, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Meanwhile, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said the number of buildings completely or partially destroyed by the quake had reached 72,945 as of 11 p.m. Monday.
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