Death toll to top 15,000 in quake-hit Miyagi alone: police
TOKYO, March 20, Kyodo
The death toll from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami will top 15,000 in Miyagi Prefecture alone, the local police chief said Sunday, while the Self-Defense Forces, police and firefighters continued their relief work for Day 10.
More than 360,000 evacuees continued to endure cold weather at shelters in 14 prefectures, including Tokyo as relief materials such as blankets arrived in Japan from overseas.
The relief supplies from 13 economies included 25,000 blankets from Canada, 30,000 packets of boil-in-the-bag fried rice and 230,000 water bottles from South Korea and 500 power generators from Taiwan, according to Japanese authorities.
The evacuees included 20,000 residents from areas near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, who have moved to seven other prefectures such as Niigata, Yamagata and Tochigi.
Radioactive iodine and cesium, which were generated from uranium fission, have been detected in tap water, rain and air in a wide area southwest of the nuclear plant, including Tokyo, the science ministry and the Ibaraki prefectural government announced Sunday, but denied any health risk.
The number of dead and missing all over Japan rose to 20,405 as of Sunday noon -- 8,133 deaths and 12,272 unaccounted for, the National Police Agency said.
In the town of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture, Mayor Koki Kato was found dead Saturday, prefectural officials said Sunday. The mayor went missing since being washed away by the tsunami during an emergency meeting outside the government building shortly after the March 11 2:46 p.m. quake.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan attended the graduation ceremony of the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka and urged the cadets to work together, referring to relief activities by SDF members. The graduates join the SDF in fiscal 2011, which starts April 1.
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Kyodo