Millions without food, water, power in Japan

Millions of Japanese were without drinking water or electricity today, surviving on instant noodles and rice balls, two days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami hammered the northeastern coast, killing at least 1,000 people.

Although the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000, it seemed overwhelmed by what's turning out to be a triple disaster.

Friday's quake and tsunami damaged two nuclear reactors at a power plant on the coast, and at least one of them appeared to be going through a partial meltdown, raising fears of a radiation leak.

"First I was worried about the quake, now I'm worried about radiation. I live near the plants, so I came here to find out if I'm okay. I tested negative, but I don't know what to do next," said Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker, at an emergency centre in Koriyama.

According to officials, at least 1,000 people were killed, including 200 bodies found today along the coast, and 678 were missing in the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that hit with breathtaking force and speed, sweeping away everything in its path.

The US Geological Survey calculated the quake to have a magnitude of 8.9, while Japanese officials raised their estimate today to 9.0. Either way it is the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan.

Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centres that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 2.5 million households were without electricity.

Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable. Fuel stations were closed and people were running out of gasoline for their cars.

Public broadcaster NHK said around 380,000 people have been evacuated to emergency shelters, many of them without power.