Local Police in Japan report up to 300 bodies found in the coastal town of Sendai as fires rage out of control. The country has issued a state of emergency The massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan the biggest in its recorded history put nations across the globe on alert and the official Kyodo news agency is reporting that about 88,000 people are missing.
Nations on alert Countries across the Asia-Pacific and even those as far afield as Hawaii went on tsunami alert after Japan experienced its biggest ever earthquake on record. Countless fires were triggered by the quake.
The quake, with a magnitude 8.9, hit at 2.46pm in the afternoon in Japan and subsequently triggered a 10 metre high wall of murky water which spread across large parts of Japan’s east coast yesterday.
Japan death toll rising Police in the east coast town of Sendai near the quake's epicentre said they had found 200 to 300 bodies and many more people were still missing, according to BBC World News.
The missing may possibly number many thousands, as the drama still unfolds, Japanese television and the Kyodo news agency are reporting.
BBC reported the Japan quake was 8000 times stronger than New Zealand's devastating Christchurch quake last month which measured 6.3 and killed 166 people.
Images Japanese TV static and aerial shots showed a huge wall of debris-filled water sweeping away cars, ships and buildings.
The quake's epicenter was 370km northeast of Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey reported. But the destruction is expected to spread far beyond Japan, as the Red Cross in Geneva reported the swell moving across the Pacific was higher than some islands.
