Confusion caused by a catastrophic earthquake and massive tsunami spread in Japan on Monday, with a quake-hit nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture suffering another hydrogen explosion and train services in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo mostly paralyzed due to Tokyo Electric Power Co’s announcement it was restricting power supply.
The number of the dead or unaccounted for following the magnitude 9.0 quake came to about 5,900 after around 1,000 bodies were found Monday on several shores on the Oshika Peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture, while police and firefighters worked to recover another 200 to 300 bodies in Sendai, the capital of Miyagi.
According to local police counts nationwide, the death toll stood at 1,886 with 2,369 missing as of 8 p.m. Monday.
Meanwhile, the Miyagi prefectural government said another 1,000 bodies were spotted in the town of Minamisanriku where the local government has been unable to contact around 10,000 people—over half the local population.
The fate of several tens of thousands of people, including about 8,000 residents of the small coastal town of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture, remains unknown.
According to the Japan Tourism Agency, among about 4,900 tourists who were visiting the devastated areas, about 1,000 could not be contacted as of 5:30 p.m. today.
Among foreign nationals in Japan, meanwhile, the first death of a South Korean in the quake was confirmed by the South Korean Foreign Ministry, while about 100 Chinese trainees in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, could not be contacted.
According to a Kyodo News survey, local governments in the devastated areas are unable to contact up to 30,000 residents.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said the number of buildings that were completely or partially destroyed stood at more than 70,000 as of 11 p.m. Monday.
Efforts to address the unprecedented damage and to secure the lives of survivors were under way in various sectors. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a morning meeting of the government disaster headquarters that emergency workers have so far rescued 15,000 survivors.
About 550,000 people had evacuated by Monday to about 2,600 shelters in six prefectures, but water, food and fuel are in short supply in various locations where they have taken refuge, while the capacities of some shelters have reached their limits.
Moreover, the Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake-hit Tohoku region will be hit by snow or rain on Wednesday, calling on evacuees to take care amid the cold weather which is expected to continue until Friday.
The weather agency also warned of continued aftershocks. On Monday, a total of five such quakes measuring up to lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 were felt in Ibaraki, Miyagi, Fukushima and Nagano prefectures.
The Defense Ministry will for the first time dispatch its reserve personnel for disaster relief operations, and around 6,500 people have so far said that they will comply.
On the economic front, meanwhile, the Nikkei index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed at a four-month low amid concerns about the huge negative impact on the Japanese economy from the deadly quake.
The Bank of Japan decided Monday to ease its monetary grip further by expanding its asset buying fund to 40 trillion yen to help prevent the quake from hindering an economic recovery.
Major automakers and department store chains suspended their operations. Among them, Toyota Motor Corp will halt production at all domestic plants through Wednesday, which will cut its production by 40,000 units.
Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd closed its seven department stores in Tokyo and the vicinity.
Communication failures continued mainly in quake-hit Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, with 566,000 phone lines and 216,300 fiber-optic connections remaining out of service as of 5 p.m. Monday.
