Jo Macfarlane
Mail Online
March 13, 2011
* 42 survivors have been pulled out of the rubble
* Official death toll hits 763, but many hundreds believed to be buried under rubble or washed away by waves
* Explosion at nuclear power plant, but experts say reactor is not at risk
* Number of people contaminated with radiation could reach 160
* Region hit by hundreds of aftershocks, some up to 6.8-magnitude
* Rescue operation begins but some areas still cut off by road damage and flood waters
* 70,000 people evacuated to shelters in Sendai
Forty-two survivors have been pulled from the rubble in the flattened town of Minami Sanrik, where up to 10,000 people are feared to have perished.
Around half the town’s 18,000 residents are missing but search and rescue teams are still working desperately through the rubble to try and find more people.
Police are also trying to stop people returning to their homes.
Despite the first tsunami warning being issued to the town that lies two miles from the coastline, some residents decided to stay in their homes instead of fleeing – leading to the high number of missing people, CNN reported today..
Most of the houses in Minami Sanriku have been completely flattened and waterlogged and one house was found even with seaweed inside.
Last night, the official death toll from Friday’s 8.9 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tidal wave stood at 763, but more than 1,700 people are believed to have been buried in the rubble or washed away by waves.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by hundreds of aftershocks, and it 
is feared the final death count could rise sharply once a full picture of the catastrophe emerges. In Minami Sanriku alone, 10,000 people could have died – more than half of the city’s population.
It only took a few minutes for the 30ft wave to wash the town away with terrifying force. The locals desperately tried to escape to higher ground. But most did not stand a chance.
It is hard to imagine any life remains among the debris. Where last week fishing boats bobbed in the harbour, it is now impossible to tell where the sea begins and the land ends.
One of the few buildings left standing is the town’s Shizugawa Hospital – the large white building to the centre left of this picture. But the rest of what was once the town centre is flooded with filthy sea water.
Other structures lie battered and smashed in piles of broken wood and twisted metal, but most are now little more than debris.
Just visible through the murky waters towards the bottom left of the photograph are the painted stripes of a zebra crossing.
There are vague remnants of roads and the occasional outline of a flooded car, and it is just possible to see the half-submerged outline of the town’s athletics track towards the top left of the picture.
Minami Sanriku lies about 55 miles west of the earthquake’s epicentre and directly in the path of the subsequent tsunami.
