LOC09:54
06:54 GMT
(with photo)
TOKYO, March 25 (KUNA) -- The official death toll from northeastern Japan's
March 11 earthquake and tsunami topped 10,000 on Friday, the National Police
Agency said.
The number of deaths came to 10,035 as of noon and 17,443 people were
registered by family members with police as missing.
The figure is expected to further rise, as many entire families in coastal
regions were swallowed by the tsunami and disappeared without a trace. Also,
the figure for Fukushima Prefecture is likely to climb given that search
operations there have been disrupted following the nuclear crisis triggered by
the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Of the total victims, 6,097 died in the hardest-hit Miyagi Prefecture
alone, and 3,025 deaths were confirmed in neighboring Iwate Prefecture, the
agency said.
About 240,000 people are still camped out in 1,900 temporary shelters,
including Tokyo, with many of them suffering from shortages of food, water and
other essential supplies.
The twin disasters also damaged cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant, located 230 km north of Tokyo, spreading radioactive
contamination into the air and water. At the plant, firefighters and the
workers continued desperate efforts to cool down overheating spent fuel pools
and restore vital cooling functions in hopes of averting a massive radiation
leak.
Direct damage from the magnitude 9.0-quake and ensuing tsunami is estimated
at as high as JPY 25 trillion (USD 309 billion), the Japanese government said
Wednesday, making it the world's most costly natural disaster on record.
The estimate does not include economic losses resulting from the problems
at the Fukushima plant and rolling blackouts. (end)
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