Chaos: Passengers crowd Mar Haneda International Airport outside Tokyo as foreigners scramble to flee the country amid radiation fears
17,000 British nationals could be evacuated as last ditch efforts are made to stop nuclear catastrophe
Rich scramble to book private jets out the country as fleeing passengers pack Tokyo airport
French say Japanese have 'visibly lost essential control' as they urge their citizens to get out
Plans are being drawn up to evacuate every British national in Japan amid mounting fears of a nuclear catastrophe. Thousands of Britons were last night warned to leave Tokyo and all other areas under threat of radiation poisoning.
Last ditch: A Japanese military helicopter - silhouetted top left - dumps water onto reactors 3 and 4 at Fukushima nuclear plant
The advice – echoed by other countries around the world – followed a meeting of the Cabinet’s emergency Cobra committee to discuss the meltdown-threatened Fukushima nuclear plant.
It heightened suspicions that the crisis at the plant – already ranked the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl – is worse than the Japanese authorities have publicly let on. Yesterday ‘last-ditch’ efforts were continuing at Fukushima to prevent a catastrophe with a Japanese army helicopter dumping water onto troubled nuclear reactor.
Collecting water: The Self-Defense Forces's helicopter scoops seawater on Japan's northeast coast en route to the Fukushima plant
A CH-47 Chinook helicopter began dumping seawater on the damaged reactor of Unit 3 at the Fukushima complex at 9.48am local time, said defense ministry spokeswoman Kazumi Toyama. The aircraft dumped at least four loads on the reactor, though much of the water appeared to be dispersed in the air.
The dumping was intended both to help cool the reactor and to replenish water in a pool holding spent fuel rods, Toyama said. The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said earlier that the pool was nearly empty, which might cause the rods to overheat.
Last night an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that radiation levels at the plant had fallen steadily over the past 12 hours.
However, ministers were due to hold further talks last night on whether an immediate evacuation from Japan should be considered.
About 17,000 British nationals are thought to be in the country, mostly in Tokyo. Last night’s Foreign Office warning stopped short of ordering them to leave the country – a diplomatic gesture which will be welcomed by the Japanese government.
But officials conceded that in reality most Britons will have few options but to leave Japan if they want to heed the advice.
Thousands of Japanese citizens are already fleeing Tokyo for the south.
Officials yesterday insisted there was no significant risk to human health in Tokyo, which is less than 140 miles south of Fukushima.
But Europe’s energy chief Guenther Oettinger warned the huge plant was ‘effectively out of control’ – sparking fears of a meltdown, which could send a radioactive cloud into the atmosphere.
He warned of ‘further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island’. Mr Oettinger predicted the dire situation could take a further turn for the worse ‘within hours’.
The Japanese public was also unconvinced by its government’s reassurances. The mayor of Minimisoma, which is 12 miles from the Fukushima plant, said: ‘We weren’t told when the first reactor exploded, we only heard about it on television. The government doesn’t tell us anything. We are isolated. They’re leaving us to die.’
The Foreign Office insisted there was ‘no real human health issue’ outside the 20-mile exclusion zone surrounding the plant.
But it warned that panic caused by the crisis meant there were ‘potential disruptions to the supply of goods, transport, communications, power and other infrastructure’ in Tokyo.
Officials confirmed that contingency plans were being drawn up for an airlift of British nationals if the crisis worsens. Talks have already been held with airlines about laying on extra flights.
The warning came as the Japanese authorities made increasingly desperate attempts to contain the crisis at the Fukushima plant.
Helicopters deployed to dump water on the plant were pulled out amid concerns about soaring radiation levels.
Officials were considering using water cannon – normally used to control riots – in a desperate bid to cool the overheating reactors, which have suffered a series of explosions.
Escape: residents gather up their belongings and form a queue as they wait to board a bus out of Sendai, north eastern Japan, yesterday
Exodus: Hundreds of vehicles snake out of the shadow of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant
Hundreds of vehicles sped out of the shadow of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant yesterday.
Those inside the cars and trucks were fleeing for their lives, terrified about what might happen next and reluctant to believe anything their government was telling them.
‘We knew it was close by, but they told us over and over again that it was safe, safe, safe,’ said 70-year-old evacuee Fumiko Watanabe.
‘People are worried that we aren’t being told how dangerous this stuff is and what really happened.’
Meanwhile scores of terrified residents began to flee Tokyo as the power plant threatened to send a cloud of radioactive dust across Japan.
Even in Yamagata city itself, some 60 miles from the plant, residents were fearful of contamination.
Bustle: Passengers wait to leave at the Tokyo International Airport, some on any plane they can
As smoke billowed from the nuclear facility, 56-year-old shopkeeper Takeo Obata said: ‘When the winds blow from the south-east you can smell the sea air.
‘So if we can smell the sea, don’t you think we will be able to smell that poisonous air? What are these people doing to us?’
Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan was also furious. He was not told immediately about the latest explosion yesterday in one of the reactors, and is reported to have asked the plant’s operators, Tokyo Electric,
Screening: Evacuees are screened for radiation exposure at a testing center as fallout fears spread
Aftershocks rocked the north-east region again yesterday, raising concerns that further damage would be caused to the already-weakened container walls of four reactors.
Two 20ft holes have been blasted in the wall of reactor number four’s outer building after the last explosion.
‘I can’t believe them now. Not at all. We can see the damage to our houses, but radiation? We have no idea what is happening. I am so scared.’
Others had only one objective – to escape the area around the plant. ‘I don’t care where I end up,’ said one driver as he joined a massive queue for petrol on the road to Tokyo. ‘I just want to get as far away from this place as I can.’
Life and death: A baby is checked for signs of radiation, left, as others get checked in Koriyama City, near Fukushima, right, right
As residents were evacuated from the area around the Fukushima plant, they were screened for radiation exposure.
Experts in white and yellow protective suits passed geiger counters over thousands – even young babies – who had fled from their homes to camp in huge evacuation centres.
Some declared that they could no longer believe what their government was telling them. ‘We want the truth,’ said Yoshiaki Kawata, a 64-year-old farmer who lives in a hillside village in neighbouring Yamagata prefecture.
Heartbreak: Women wail together after hearing the death of family members at an evacuation center in Kesennuma
Tragic: A woman reacts to news that a loved one has died, left, and a picture of family members sits atop the rubble of a destroyed home, right
Officials of Tokyo Electric sat side by side in the capital and struggled to answer penetrating questions about the level of danger before government spokesman Yukio Edano admitted that dangerous levels of radioactive substances had been spilled into the atmosphere.
Although the government said the real danger zone was within 19 miles of the plant, the radiation announcement caused panic among those within a radius of 100 miles. This was followed by the warning that anyone inside the radius had to stay indoors.
Should they venture outside, they were ordered to shower and throw away their clothes when they returned.
That order meant some 140,000 were trapped indoors in and around Fukushima. But many were already asking how long they will have to stay there.
Sea change: Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant before the tsunami hit, left, and how it is now, right
‘I left my parents behind,’ said a man who was fleeing in his car with his wife. ‘They didn’t want to leave their home and now they can’t go whether they want to or not.
‘The government needs to tell us how long this is going to last.’
Authorities told residents not to use their own vehicles, said Koji Watanabe, a 60-year-old taxi driver.
But with military vehicles focused on children, the elderly and the disabled, he got fed up waiting and decided to leave in his car.
He and his wife, who has lung cancer, did not have enough fuel to travel far. Many petrol stations are closed, and those that are open have long queues.
EXCLUSIVE!!!! Anxious Foreigners Flee Japan Nuclear Crisis 2011-03-15
Disaster: A satellite picture shows the remains of four reactors - by last night three of them had been hit by explosions. Nuclear experts were battling to bring the situation at the Fukushima plant under control
Radiation spewing from explosion at fourth reactor
PM extends exclusion zone to 19 miles and warns residents to stay inside
Third explosion last night raises fears of nuclear meltdown
Latest blast in number two reactor - previous blasts in reactors one and three
A desperate race against time to avert a nuclear meltdown was under way in Japan last night. The country appealed to the U.S. for help to control three overheating reactors crippled by Friday’s devastating earthquake.
The plea came as a second and third explosion rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaging two reactors.
A senior Japanese politician said there were signs that fuel rods were melting in all three reactors. ‘Although we cannot directly check it, it’s highly likely to be happening,’ said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.
Experts said the nightmare scenario was of a meltdown which triggers a massive build-up of pressure inside the containment unit. If the unit cracks, a plume of radioactive dust and gas would spill hundreds of miles into the air.
Fears of that meltdown at a Japanese power plant rose sharply last night after a new explosion was reported in the complex.
It is understood the blast was in the Number 2 reactor, where fuel rods had been in danger of overheating. Explosions have already occurred in the Number 1 and Number 3 reactors.
The new drama occurred because the explosion in the Number 3 reactor had damaged the cooling system in the adjoining reactor, resulting in last night's third blast.
Officials have been struggling to pacify the public's concerns about radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere.
With serious questions now surrounding the safety of the three crippled reactors, many people believe the chances of the material escaping have increased dramatically.
A second explosion rocks the crippled Fukushima Dalichi nuclear plant yesterday (1), (2) smoke starts to pour from the building housing the plant's third nuclear reactor before (3) as the building collapses, the black plume stretches up into the sky
Chaos: The view from a U.S. navy helicopter as it surveys the devastation caused by the tsunami and earthquake in Sendai
Right: Sailors assigned to the Black Knights of Anti-Submarine Squadron load supplies on to an HH-60H Sea Hawk helicopter aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan while left a house bobs along in the Pacific Ocean - such is the chaos caused by the tsunami
Workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant fled last night after a third explosion raised serious concerns about a meltdown.
Embarrassed officials of the Tokyo Electric Power company called a hurried news conference in Tokyo to apologise to the public for 'the inconvenience'.
But they were hesitant in disclosing details about the full extent of the danger to the public.
In the House of Commons, David Cameron said he had ‘severe concerns’ for Britons who were in Japan at the time of the earthquake and tsunami. Thousands of them are still unaccounted for.
In a day of worrying developments:
The official death toll rose to 2,800 but is expected eventually to exceed 10,000.
Two thousand bodies were washed up in two towns in the worst affected area in north-east Japan.
Strong aftershocks persisted in the stricken area, and a 4.1 magnitude earthquake jolted Tokyo at about 8pm British time yesterday.
About 450,000 people have been evacuated nationwide – plus 180,000 from around the nuclear plant, where 190 have been exposed to some form of radiation.
Almost 2million households are without power in the freezing north and about1.4million households have been left without running water.
A woman talks to her daughter who has been isolated after showing signs of radiation near Fukushima
Two other nuclear plants are also thought to be under threat. At Tokai there were also fears of overheating reactors as cooling pumps failed, while high levels of radiation were detected at the nuclear plant at Onagawa.
But the main concern remained the Fukushima plant on the north-east coast, where weary engineers were working around the clock for the fourth day.
Before last night’s third explosion they had been engaged in a last-ditch move to use seawater to cool the overheating core in reactor number two after fuel rods inside it were exposed.
Experts said it was probably the first time in the nuclear industry’s 57-year history that seawater, which is corrosive, has been used to cool fuel rods, a sign of how close Japan may be to a major accident.
Although the plant’s three working reactors shut down automatically when the magnitude nine earthquake struck, the cooling systems which keep the radioactive uranium and plutonium fuel rods cool have been hit by a series of failures.
Earlier yesterday a vast cloud of black smoke erupted from the plant after an explosion – the second in two days – demolished the building housing reactor three.
The explosion was triggered when engineers released steam to prevent a dangerous build-up of pressure inside the sealed reactor. At superheated temperatures inside the core the water vapour had split into hydrogen and oxygen which ignited, destroying the outer building and injuring 11 people, one seriously.
A similar explosion rocked the plant on Saturday when steam was released from another reactor.
Yesterday’s blast left the 80-inch concrete and steel walls which protect the nuclear reactor intact.
Evacuation: Residents shelter in Sendai city in Miyagi after being evacuated from their homes following the blasts at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated amid growing fears that the plant could go into meltdown
Rescuers walk through flattened buildings after the recent tsunami in Natori City, Miyagi prefecture
Resilience: A man in a suit walks calmly through a scene of devastation in Sendai, Japan
However, shortly after the explosion, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said it had lost the ability to cool the neighbouring reactor two – the third reactor to suffer cooling problems.
As the engineers tried to inject seawater using fire pumps the water levels dropped twice unexpectedly, leaving the fuel rods uncovered by cooling water. At one point they were exposed for two and a half hours.
Without coolant, fuel rods can overheat and melt. In a serious meltdown, radioactive molten material falls through the floor of the containment vessel into the ground underneath.
The drama at Fukushima has added to the anxiety for locals shellshocked by the quake and tsunami. Many Japanese are sceptical of assurances given by government officials about nuclear leaks, following at least two cover-ups in the wake of dramas in other plants in recent years.
Men in protective suits continued to sweep Geiger counters over terrified survivors, looking for evidence of radiation exposure.
Salvage: A woman saves her possessions from the rubble in Rikuzentakata, northern Japan, left, while right a fire engine has been completely destroyed by the tsunami
After Japan’s request to the United States for help cooling the reactors, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was considering providing technical advice.
President Barack Obama offered any help the U.S. could provide to help recover from its ‘multiple disasters’.
The U.S. Navy moved ships away from the devastated north-east Japanese coast after 17 helicopter crews helping in the rescue efforts were contaminated with radiation. The crews were treated on an aircraft carrier.
Scientists say there are serious dangers but little risk of a catastrophe similar to the 1986 blast in Chernobyl, where the reactor did not have a containment shell.
Some said the length of time since the crisis began showed the chemical reactions inside the reactor were not moving quickly toward a complete meltdown.
Even so, the nuclear danger has prompted several countries to warn against travelling to and staying in Japan. In Britain, the Foreign Office advised against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and the north-east of Japan.
Disaster shows nuclear should be scrapped, say green groups Green campaigners wasted no time in exploiting the disaster, claiming it proved nuclear power could never be safe.
Greenpeace warned that Japan faced a nuclear meltdown, while the Green Party called on the Coalition to scrap its nuclear programme.
Green Party leader and MP Caroline Lucas also called for an EU level inquiry into the wider implications of the nuclear accident.
Steve Campbell, of Greenpeace, said: ‘This proves once and for all that nuclear power cannot ever be safe. Japan’s nuclear plants were built with the latest technology, specifically to withstand natural disasters, yet we still face potential meltdown.’
Greenpeace was also concerned about the lack of data on the total amount of radiation already released, and whether the areas where spent radioactive fuel is dumped – outside the containment area of the reactor – were secure.
But nuclear scientists said the earthquake had highlighted how Japan’s power stations were robust.
Professor Paddy Regan, a nuclear physicist at Surrey University, said: ‘We had a doomsday earthquake in a country with 55 nuclear power stations and they all shut down perfectly, although three have had problems since.
‘This was a huge earthquake, and as a test of the resilience and robustness of nuclear plants it seems they have withstood the effects very well.’
Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has ordered a review of the safety of the country’s nuclear reactors. The UK is poised to build a new generation of nuclear power stations over the next decade.
LATEST NEWS Explosion rocks third Japanese reactor 3/14/2011
The sound of a baby’s cry amid the rubble seemed so impossible that soldiers searching a tsunami-smashed village dismissed it as a mistake.
But it came again. And they realised they had not been hearing things.
They pulled away wood and slate, dug back thick oozing mud – and there was the child they were to describe as a ‘tiny miracle’.
... And fear: Upon hearing another tsunami warning, a father tries to flee to safety with the baby girl he has just been reunited with
The four-month-old girl had been swept from her parents’ arms in the shattered village of Ishinomaki when the deadly wave crashed into the family home.
For three days, the child’s frantic family had believed she was lost to them for ever.
But yesterday, for a brief moment, the horrors of the disaster were brightened by one helpless baby’s story of survival.
Soldiers from the Japanese Defence Force had been going from door to door pulling bodies from the devastated homes in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Sendai.
Most of the victims were elderly, unable to escape the destructive black tide.
But for this precious moment, at least, it was only the child who mattered to the team of civil defence troops who found her.
Joy: The member of Japan's Self-Defence Force member holds the four-month-old baby girl in Ishinomaki, northern Japan after her rescue
One of them picked her up in his arms, wrapped her in a blanket which had been handed to him and cradled the child as his colleagues crowded around, not believing that someone as young as this had survived when all hope had been lost.
The tiniest survivor was cold and wet and crying, but she is believed to have suffered no other injuries. Why she did not drown remained a mystery.
But the soldiers were somehow able to trace her overjoyed father, who had been taking refuge in his wrecked home with the rest of his family.
Even then, the nightmare wasn’t over. For just minutes after the emotional reunion, the shell-shocked survivors were told that a second tsunami might be on its way.
The panicked father begged the soldiers to take the baby to safety on higher ground. But the 11am alarm proved to be false and the reunited family returned to try and rebuild their home.
Amid the devastation, there have been precious few tales of survival.
Devastation: A 'HELP' sign is written on the ground of a primary school (bottom of picture, centre) near the coast in tsunami-hit Ishinomaki. A baby girl was remarkably found wrapped in a pink jacket after three days alone
But the discovery of the unnamed child has given fresh hope that others might be found alive in the shattered landscape which covers scores of miles of the east coast of Honshu island.
Before the baby’s discovery, searchers found at least 2,000 bodies cast up along the shoreline of the badly-hit Miyagi prefecture.
All had drowned, according to police, and as the search through the debris continued throughout the day officials conceded that what had started out as a rescue effort would become a recovery operation.
And then came the cry of a little girl.
‘Her discovery has put a new energy into the search,’ said a civil defence official. ‘We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this.’
NEW FOOTAGE EXCLUSIVE : Japan Tsunami and Earthquake
Devastating: A woman sobs on a road as she surveys the destroyed city of Natori in the region of Miyagi in northern Japan
Second 'monster' quake could measure have magnitude of 8
Terrible tide of at least 2,000 bodies wash up on the coastline
Crews fight to bring reactor at nuclear power plant under control
Millions left without food and power and hospitals have no medicine
Devastated Japan today faced the prospect of a second massive earthquake and tsunami even as millions of citizen struggled to come to terms with its biggest-ever natural disaster.
Over 2,000 bodies had been washed ashore on the country's decimated coastline - raising fears the death toll could be higher than previously thought.
While the official death toll stood at nearly 1,900, the discovery of the washed-up bodies and other reports of deaths suggest the true number is much higher. In Miyagi, the police chief has estimated 10,000 people could have been killed by the quake and tsunami alone.
Bird's eye view: A photograph of the devastation in Sendai taken from a U.S. military helicopter
Grim: The Panaese army search for bodies in Higashimatsushima City, in Miyagi, the state where up to 10,000 people may have died
Crematoriums were overflowing with the dead and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the reality of its mounting crisis.
The bodies washed up had been found on the shoreline in Miyagi on the eastern coast of the country.
Millions were still without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures in the devastated north-east. An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.1 jolted the Tokyo area around 5am on Tuesday - 8pm on Monday in the UK.
Though Japanese officials have refused to speculate on the death toll, Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono, who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami, said it would be 'a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000' dead.
Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and the fuel rods at another were at least briefly fully exposed, raising fears of a meltdown.
The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda following the 9.0 magnitude quake on Friday.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the nation faced its worst crisis since World War II. Kan said last night in a television address that the nation's future will be decided by the choices made by each Japanese and urged all to join in their determination to rebuild the nation following a massive earthquake and tsunami.
People walk a road between the rubble of destroyed buildings in Minamisanriku town, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, three days after the earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 struck
Laid waste: Huge swathes of land were destroyed when the tsunami hit Sendai in Miyagi province, sweeping away everything in its path
Screening: A mother tries to talk to her daughter who had been isolated for signs of radiation after evacuating from the vicinity of Fukushima's nuclear plants (left). She then drops down to talk to the family dog
Waiting for rescue: Isolated survivors sit around a fire and await help in a makeshift camp near Ishinomaki, northern Japan
Experts are now warning a second huge quake - almost as powerful as the first - could hit the country, triggering another tsunami.
The director of the Australian Seismological Centre, Dr Kevin McCue, told the Sydney Morning Herald that there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, and a larger aftershock was likely.
'Normally they happen within days.
'The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9.
'That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.'
Japan's worst disaster since World War Two: The country's Prime Minister Naoto Kan
Another expert believes Friday's quake is the 'aftershock' of an earlier eruption two days before, in which a 7.2 magnitude explosion shook the Pacific sea floor near the northern Miyagi area.
John McCloskey, a geophysicist at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, told the journal Nature the quakes have 'probably also affected the stress field further south along the fault zone, critically increasing the earthquake risk in the Tokyo region'.
He added that the aftershocks 'may be as large as, or even stronger than, the quake that last month devastated Christchurch in New Zealand', the website Good reported.
That disaster, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, claimed more than 160 lives.
Japan is beginning to take stock of what the prime minister labelled its ‘most severe crisis since the Second World War’, when the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japanese police said 1,000 washed up bodies were found scattered today across the coastline of Miyagi prefecture.
Desperate: A 'help' sign is written on the ground of Ohara Primary School near a sea coast covered with the rubble in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture
Scale of the disaster: Rescuers, seen from the air, appear tiny when viewed against the backdrop of carnage and devastation. They were searching for victims of the tsunami in Noda village, Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan
The discovery raised the official death toll to about 2,800, but the Miyagi police chief has said that more than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in his province alone, which has a population of 2.3million.
In one town in a neighbouring prefecture, the crematorium was unable to handle the crush of bodies being brought in for funerals.
'We have already begun cremations, but we can only handle 18 bodies a day,' said Katsuhiko Abe. 'We are overwhelmed and are asking other cites to help us deal with bodies. We only have one crematorium in town.'
In Japan most people opt to cremate their dead, a process that, like burial, requires permission first from local authorities. But the government took the rare step today of waiving the paperwork to speed up funerals.
A Health Ministry spokesman said: 'The current situation is so extraordinary, and it is very likely that crematoriums are running beyond capacity.
Wrecked... Upturned cars litter the landscabem buildings have collapsed as Miyagi Prefecture lies in ruins
Wave of destruction: The ruined shoreline of Sendai (left) and cars burnt out by fires in the wake of the tsunami lined up nearby
Vast expanse: The process of clearing the wreckage has been slow despite 100,000 troops being deployed to help scour the debris
'This is an emergency measure. We want to help quake-hit people as much as we can.'
Friday's double tragedy has caused unimaginable deprivation. In many areas there is no running water, no power and four- to five-hour waits for petrol . People are suppressing hunger with instant noodles or rice balls while dealing with the loss of loved ones and homes.
'People are surviving on little food and water. Things are simply not coming,' said a government official in Iwate prefecture, one of the three hardest hit.
He said authorities were receiving just 10 per cent of the food and other supplies they need. Body bags and coffins were running so short that the government may turn to foreign funeral homes for help, he said.
Carnage: Tsunami has left a scene of devastation that will cost billions to repair
Evacuees, who fled from the vicinity of Fukushima nuclear power plant, rest at an evacuation center set in a gymnasium in Kawamata, Fukushima
100,000 troops are on the ground across Japan searching for bodies with the death toll expected to be in excess of 10,000 once all the bodies have been discovered
'We have requested funeral homes across the nation to send us many body bags and coffins. But we simply don't have enough,' he said.
'We just did not expect such a thing to happen. It's just overwhelming.'
The coast has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since Friday, the latest one a 6.2 magnitude quake that was followed by a new tsunami scare today.
As sirens wailed, soldiers abandoned their search operations and told residents of the devastated shoreline in Soma, the worst hit town in Fukushima prefecture, to run to higher ground.
People line up to get kerosene in Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture (left) while an aerial picture shows the remnants of train tracks in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture
Search parties arrived in Soma for the first time since Friday to dig out bodies.
Ambulances stood by and body bags were laid out in an area cleared of debris, as firefighters used hand picks and chain saws to clear a jumble of broken timber, plastic sheets, roofs, sludge, twisted cars, tangled powerlines and household goods.
Officials said one-third of the city of 38,000 people was flooded and thousands were missing.
Hundreds of Britons – many of them English language teachers – are among those who have not been traced to date.
Ghostly: The scene of devastation seen from the air. Vast areas have been completely wiped off the map by the tsunami
Reduced to matchsticks: A view of a vast area of tsunami devastated Shizugawa district in Minami Sanriku
Japanese officials have refused to speculate on how high the death toll could rise, but experts who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami offered a dire outlook.
'It's a miracle really, if it turns out to be less than 10,000,' said Hery Harjono, a senior geologist with the Indonesian Science Institute, who was closely involved with the aftermath of earlier disaster that killed 230,000 people - of which only 184,000 bodies were found.
He drew parallels between the two disasters - notably that many bodies in Japan may have been sucked out to sea or remain trapped beneath rubble as they did in Indonesia's hardest-hit Aceh province.
But he also stressed that Japan's infrastructure, high-level of preparedness and city planning to keep houses away from the shore could mitigate their losses.
Totally destroyed: The town of Minamisanriku town, Miyagi, where 10,000 people are missing
According to public broadcaster NHK, 430,000 people are living in emergency shelters or with relatives. Another 24,000 people are stranded.
One reason for the loss of power is the damage several nuclear reactors in the area. At one plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, three reactors have lost the ability to cool down.
Explosions have destroyed the containment buildings of the other two reactors.
More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area around the plants in recent days.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said it has moved its ships and aircraft away from an earthquake-stricken Japanese nuclear power plant after discovering low-level radioactive contamination.
The fleet said today that the radiation was from a plume of smoke and steam released from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which has been hit by two explosions since Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.
Chilling: The destruction caused by the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, right, caused similar devastation. Left a survivor in Otsuchi, Iwate, looks through a family photo album as the country struggles to come to terms with the scale of the disaster
The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles (160km) offshore when its instruments detected the radiation.
But the fleet said the dose of radiation was about the same as one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment.
Tokyo Electric Power held off on imposing rolling blackouts planned for today, but called for people to try to limit electricity use.
Many regional train lines were suspended or operating on a limited schedule to help reduce the power load.
Japan's central bank injected 15 trillion yen (£114 billion) into money markets to stem worries about the world's third-largest economy.
Shares fell on the first business day after the disasters. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average shed nearly 634 points, or 6.2%, to 9,620.49, extending losses from Friday. Escalating concerns over the fallout of the disaster triggered a plunge that hit all sectors.
Japan's economy has been ailing for 20 years, barely managing to eke out weak growth between slowdowns. It is saddled by a massive public debt that, at 200% of gross domestic product, is the biggest among industrialised nations.
Preliminary estimates put repair costs from the earthquake and tsunami in the tens of billions of dollars - a huge blow for an already fragile economy that lost its place as the world's No. 2 to China last year.
Chaos: Passengers crowd Mar Haneda International Airport outside Tokyo as foreigners scramble to flee the country amid radiation fears
Collecting water: The Self-Defense Forces's helicopter scoops seawater on Japan's northeast coast en route to the Fukushima plant
He warned of ‘further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island’. Mr Oettinger predicted the dire situation could take a further turn for the worse ‘within hours’. 
