"Is It A Dream?" Stunned Japan Grapples With Disaster

A wrecked airplane lies nose-deep in splintered wood from homes in the port of Sendai. An hour's drive away, workers in white masks and protective clothing scan thousands of people for radiation.

Two days after a ferocious earthquake and tsunami submerged Japan's northeast coast, killing thousands and leaving millions of people without electricity or running water, many are struggling to comprehend the scale of the disaster.

"Is it a dream? I just feel like I am in a movie or something," said Ichiro Sakamoto, 50, in Hitachi, a city in Ibaraki Prefecture. "Whenever I am alone I have to pinch my cheek to check whether it's a dream or not."

In Sendai, a city of one million, survivors and rescue workers picked through piles of rubbish mixed with wood and other debris from buildings and homes, searching for belongings and removing bodies.

Some hoarded supplies. A queue of cars waiting for fuel stretched 2 km (1.2 miles) in Sendai. About 300 people crowded into a supermarket, and about 40 lined up at Circle K Sunkus, a convenience store.

"There have been tsunami before but they were just small. No one ever thought that it could be like this," said Michiko Yamada, a 75-year-old in Rikuzentakata, a nearly flattened village in far-northern Iwate prefecture.

"The tsunami was black and I saw people on cars and an old couple get swept away right in front of me."

Many bodies were discovered under rubble on Sunday in Yamada's village, where about 5,000 homes were submerged, Kyodo News reported. In nearby Otsuchi village, the town office was swept away with the mayor and local officials apparently inside.

A 60-year-old man was found floating on a piece of roof about 15 km (9 miles) offshore from Fukushima prefecture. Hiromitsu Shinkawa was airlifted and in "good condition" after being swept out to sea with his home, Kyodo said.

South of Sendai in Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, tens of thousands of people evacuated from areas around a crippled nuclear power plant were scanned for radiation exposure.

Although the government insists radiation levels are low a day after an explosion in the main building of the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, white-masked workers in protective hats and gowns used handheld scanners to people for radiation.

"It's quite scary," said 17-year-old Masanori Ono, waiting at one Koriyama evacuation center.

About 10,000 people were feared killed by the earthquake. and as many as 20,820 buildings were either destroyed or badly damaged. The death toll could go higher. Local governments had lost contact with tens of thousands of people, Kyodo said.

Read more