Japan Tsunami: Death toll likely to cross 10,000?

Tokyo, Mar 13: Japan experienced a massive earthquake following tsunami on Friday, Mar 11. Two days have already passed and the government officials reported 2,000 deaths, officially till Sunday afternoon. But a police official on the terms of anonymity, claimed that death toll may cross 10,000 in Miyagi alone. So, what is the total death toll in all tsunami hit regions.

Police official on Sunday stated that the prefecture's police chief told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths in the prefecture was more than 10,000 in Miyagi which is the worst affected by the recent catastrophe.

However, according the figures given by the government sources, there were only 379 officially confirmed deaths in Miyagi out of a total of 801 as of Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, 18 people were infected by the radioactive rays after the second leak in Japan's Fukushima power plant. Following the tsunami, the first nuclear explosion on Saturday, Mar 12 but the second explosion was feared to occur on Sunday.

Japan ordered to evacuate almost 170,000 people from the area near the damaged nuclear power plant, informed the UN nuclear

watchdog. People were ordered out of a 20-kilometre radius surrounding the Fukushima, sources reported.

Earlier reports showed that the explosion was not of the reactors, but occurred in the plant. The outer wall of the building holding the first reactor was blown off in the impact.

Authorities informed that if the cooling system remains inoperative for many hours, the water will eventually boil away, and the fuel will begin to melt.

However, Secretary of States, Hillary Clinton informed, "We just had our Air Force assets in Japan transport some really important coolant to one of the nuclear plants." Confirming Clinton's statement, Presindent Barack Obama also earlier claimed, "So Air Force planes were able to deliver that. So we're really deeply involved in trying to do as much as we can on behalf of the Japanese and on behalf of US citizens."

The crisis at the aging plant confronted Japan with its worst nuclear accident and perhaps the biggest mishap at nuclear plant since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.

OneIndia News