Over 10,000 people die in quake and tsunami in Japan

TOKYO, March 26 (Itar-Tass) -- The number of those who died and are
missing as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan
amounted to 27,204 people, the Main Police Department of the country
reported on Saturday.
The calamity claimed the lives of 10,151 people, the bodies of which
were already found, another 17,053 people are considered to be missing.
According to the latest police data, the number of victims in Miyagi
Prefecture, which suffered most of all from the calamity, reached 6,097
people. Huge losses are recorded in neighbouring Iwate and Fukushima
Prefectures - - 3,092 and 904 people accordingly died there. In these
three regions, where a below zero air temperature was registered on
Saturday morning, 205,000 houses are left without electricity, water is
not supplied to 560,000 houses and gas - - to 360,000 houses till now.
The earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0, which hit the north-east of
the island of Honshu on March 11, became the most devastating one over the
country' all post-war history. According to the number of victims, it
exceeded the sad records of the seismic disasters of 1896 and 1995. More
people died only during the Great Kanto Earthquake which ruined Tokyo and
Yokohama on September 1, 1923.