Police: 10,000 likely dead in one Japan region.

Police: 10,000 likely dead in one Japan region.

Millions are without drinking water, electricity or adequate food; prime minister says crisis is worst since World War II

The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast.

"This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago," Prime Minister Naoto Kan told reporters.

Kan said in a television address that the nation's future would be decided by the choices made by each person and urged everyone to join in their determination to rebuild the nation.

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.

According to officials, more than 1,400 people were killed — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and more than 1,000 were missing in the disasters. Another 1,700 were injured.

However, police said the death toll was likely far higher in the prefecture of Miyagi alone.

Miyagi police spokesman Go Sugawara said Sunday that the prefecture's police chief told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths in the prefecture was more than 10,000. Miyagi was one of the areas worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
Nuclear fears

Adding to the country's woes, there were fears that a second nuclear reactor at the Dai-ichi power plant would explode Sunday and problems with three reactors at another power plant.

On Saturday, Japan's nuclear safety agency reported that radioactive cesium and iodine were detected near the Dai-ichi power plant after one of its reactor exploded. Authorities said the blast did not damage the containment structure surrounding the reactor.

The detection of the materials, which are created during atomic fission, prompted the company to acknowledge that the reactor's fuel had partially melted, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.