Death Toll Estimate in Japan Soars as Relief Efforts Intensify
The scene in Natori, Japan, reflected the paralysis across the county on Sunday. “If the nation works together, we will overcome,” the prime minister said. More Photos »
By MARTIN FACKLER and MARK McDONALD
SENDAI, Japan — Japan reeled from a rapidly unfolding disaster of epic scale on Sunday, pummeled by the death toll, destruction and homelessness caused by the earthquake and tsunami and new hazards from damaged nuclear reactors that were leaking radiation. The prime minister called it Japan’s worst crisis since World War II.
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The streets in Ishimaki City, Japan, were still flooded on Sunday. The government ordered 100,000 troops to take part in the relief effort — nearly half the country’s active military force. More Photos »
Japan’s $5 trillion economy, the third largest in the world, was threatened with severe disruptions and partial paralysis as many industries shut down and the armed forces and volunteers mobilized for the far more urgent effort of finding survivors, evacuating residents near the stricken power plants and caring for the victims of the 8.9 magnitude quake that struck on Friday.
The disaster has left more than 10,000 people dead, many thousands homeless and millions without water, power, heat or transportation.
The most urgent worries concerned the failures at two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where engineers were still struggling to avert meltdowns and where some radiation had already leaked. An explosion at one of the reactors on Monday did not appear to have harmed it, Japanese officials said.
Fukushima Daiichi and another power station, Fukushima Daiini, about 10 miles away, have been under a state of emergency since the quake. The collective anxiety about Japan caused a rout in the Japanese stock market on Monday morning, with the main index falling 5.5 percent, the worst drop in three years.
Worried about the severe strains on the banking and financial systems, the Bank of Japan pumped about $86 billion into the economy on Monday, and the government was discussing an emergency tax increase to help finance relief and recovery work.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the country’s crippled nuclear power grid, announced a series of rotating blackouts to conserve electricity — the first controlled power cuts in Japan in 60 years.
The death toll was certain to climb as searchers began to reach coastal villages that essentially vanished under the first muddy surge of the tsunami, which struck the nation’s northern Pacific coast near the port city of Sendai. In one town alone, the port of Minamisanriku, a senior police official said the number of dead would “certainly be more than 10,000.” That is more than half the town’s population of 17,000.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a news conference in Tokyo late Sunday: “I think that the earthquake, tsunami and the situation at our nuclear reactors makes up the worst crisis in the 65 years since the war. If the nation works together, we will overcome.”
The government ordered 100,000 troops — nearly half the country’s active military force and the largest mobilization in postwar Japan — to take part in the relief effort. An American naval strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan also arrived off Japan on Sunday to help with refueling, supply and rescue duties.
The quake and tsunami did not reach Japan’s industrial heartland, although economists said the power blackouts could affect industrial production — notably carmakers, electronics manufacturers and steel plants — and interrupt the nation’s famously efficient supply chain. Tourism was also bound to plummet, as the United States, France and other nations urged citizens to avoid traveling to Japan.
AIR Worldwide, a risk consultant in Boston, said its disaster models estimated property damage to be as high as $35 billion. The company said 70 percent of residential construction in Japan was wood, and earthquake insurance was not widely used.
Amid the despair and the worry over an unrelenting series of strong aftershocks, there was one bright moment when the Japanese Navy rescued a 60-year-old man who had been floating at sea for two days.
The man, Hiromitsu Arakawa, clung to the roof of his tiny home in the town of Minamisoma after it was torn from its foundations by the first wave of the tsunami, the Defense Ministry said. He saw his wife slip away in the deluge, but he hung on as the house drifted away. He was discovered late Sunday morning, still on his roof, nine miles south of the town and nine miles out to sea.
The quake was the strongest to hit Japan, which sits astride the “ring of fire” that designates the most violent seismic activity in the Pacific Basin.
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