Police find '200 to 300 bodies' on Japanese coast

Two to three hundred bodies have been found in a north-eastern coastal area of Japan after a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami.

The bodies were found in Sendai city, the closest major city to the epicentre, say police.

The magnitude 8.9 quake and 23-foot (seven-metre) tsunami were followed by more than 50 aftershocks for hours, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.

Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicentre.

Earlier, police confirmed at least 60 people had been killed and 56 were missing.

The death toll was likely to continue climbing given the scale of the disaster.

The tsunami swept away boats, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control.

Tsunami warnings blanketed the entire Pacific, as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the US West Coast.

The government ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant in Onahama city to evacuate because the plant’s system was unable to cool the reactor.

The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles north-east of Tokyo.

“The earthquake has caused major damage in broad areas in northern Japan,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference.