By DPA,
Tokyo: The toll from the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan could run into tens of thousands, officials said late Monday, as rolling blackouts plunged parts of the country into darkness.
Concerns were also rising of a meltdown at two overheating nuclear power plants, after their cooling systems failed.
The number of confirmed dead and missing after the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami risen to 5,000, police said, as Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 15,000 people had been rescued so far.
Alone in the town of Onagawa in Miyagi prefecture, one of the areas hardest-hit in Friday’s disaster, more than 1,000 bodies had been recovered, local police chief Naoto Takeuchi said.
Takeuchi also said about 1,000 bodies had been found in Minami Sanriku in the prefecture, where the toll could exceed 10,000.
The official body count countrywide stood at 1,886, with search and rescue efforts still under way, police sources were quoted as saying Monday by Kyodo News agency.
News reports said tens of thousands remained unaccounted for, and the Japan Tourism Agency said the whereabouts of about 2,500 tourists in the affected area were not confirmed.
Authorities had been unable to contact around 8,000 residents of Otsuchi, a small town on the coast of Iwate Prefecture, Kyodo said.
Aftershocks rattled the area, with a 6.2-magnitude tremor hitting at 0102 GMT Monday.
International aid began arriving as rescue workers frantically combed flattened fishing villages and shattered cities in near-freezing temperatures to find the trapped or injured and recover bodies.
But after US helicopters detected radiation, its aircraft carrier abandoned its aid mission, Kyodo reported.
Thousands of people were still stranded, many of them waiting for a rescue in the cold on the roofs of schools, supermarkets and government office buildings.
About 550,000 people had been evacuated by late Monday to more than 2,500 shelters, as meteorologists predicted more cold weather, and snow by Wednesday.
But water, food and fuel were in short supply, prompting the government to organise airlifts by military helicopters, Kyodo reported.
Parts of the greater Tokyo area were plunged into darkness late Monday, as the Tokyo Electric Power Company imposed rolling blackouts to compensate for a shortfall of 10,000 megawatts in generation capacity.
The earthquake and tsunami shut down several nuclear power plants. There was an explosion at a plant in Fukushima, where three reactors were overheating after their cooling systems failed.
Efforts to cool the plants with the sea water flooding the area were only partially successful, with the fuel rods in one of the reactors starting to melt, officials said.
Increased radiation levels were recorded in the area, but the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plants, said that the explosions had not increased the risk of a dangerous radioactive leak in the event of a meltdown.
The stock market closed down more than 6 percent Monday, and the central bank said it would inject 15 trillion yen ($146 billion) into short-term money markets to help stabilise the economy.
The country’s Self-Defence Forces for the first time said they would call up their reserves to help in the relief effort.