Hundreds feared dead in devastated Japan
Baku, March 12 (AZERTAC). Dawn has broken over shellshocked Japan, where local media says more than 1,000 people are feared dead after an enormous earthquake and tsunami disaster devastated large parts of the northern Pacific coast.
A huge tsunami triggered by Japan`s biggest earthquake on record caused massive destruction yesterday as a wall of water up to 10 metres tall tore inland, destroying everything in its path.
TV footage showed the huge tide of water sweeping countless numbers of cars, boats and buildings, some of them on fire, inland in the worst-hit area of Sendai, 400 kilometres north of Tokyo.
Japan`s Jiji Press news agency said police and other data showed that the total number of quake dead and missing topped 1,000.
Before dawn today another big quake hit with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 hit Japan`s mountainous Niigata prefecture in the west of the main Honshu island, causing landslides and avalanches which destroyed some wooden houses.
And thousands of people living near the Fukushima nuclear plant were warned to evacuate their homes because of the possibility of a radioactive leak.
Friday` quake was the biggest ever recorded in Japan, striking with a magnitude of 8.9 off the north-east coast, according to the United States Geological Survey.
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