earthquakeinjapan.docVIP

BBC News with Kathy Clugston As officials in Japan struggle to assess the extent of the damage following the tsunami caused by a massive earthquake, its been announced that some 300 people are known to have been killed and more than 500 are unaccounted for in the area around the northern coastal city of Sendai. The 8.9-magnitude quake, the biggest ever recorded in Japan, sent a wave of water several metres high sweeping far inland. Its epicentre was about 130km off Japans east coast. In the capital Tokyo,several hundred kilometres away, buildings swayed violently during the quake, which was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks. This was the sound in a supermarket. These residents described their experience. I thought I would die. It was really huge. I was on the Yamanote Line train, and it was the biggest quake Id ever felt. It was very frightening. At first, I thought I had a puncture, and a concrete boulder fell onto my car. Darkness has now fallen in Tokyo, from where Roland Buerk sent this report. In the centre of Tokyo, many people are spending their night in their offices, but thousands perhaps millions chose to walk home. Train services were suspended. Even after the most violent earthquake anyone could remember, the crowds were orderly and calm. The devastation is further to the north along the Pacific coast. There a tsunami triggered by the quake reached 10km inland in places, carrying houses, buildings, boats and cars with it. In the city of Sendai, the police found up to 300 bodies in a single ward. Outside the city in a built-up area, a fire blazed across several kilometres. In another town, a vast wall of water engulfed 300 homes. The cooling system at a nuclear power station failed, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people living nearby. As well as Sendai and the surrounding farmland which were swamped, areas nearby were engulfed by fire, including the town of Kesennuma. The Japanese government is deploying hundreds of planes and ships