Historic quake leaves Japan in shock

Japan struggled Saturday to come to grips with the death and destruction caused by an earthquake and tsunami of historic proportions.

The magnitude 8.9 offshore quake, the country's strongest ever, lasted more than two minutes and caused a 23-foot tsunami that slammed into northeastern Japan and is feared to have killed at least 1,000 people.

The quake was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them more than magnitude 6.0. Officials expected those temblors to continue for months.

Akira Nomiya, 74, in Tokyo to visit his grandchildren, said the quake hit just after he stepped out of a monorail. "It shook so badly that I couldn't keep standing as I stepped out of the monorail," he said. "People were just hanging on to the wall or sitting down on the ground. Girls were screaming on the platform."

On Saturday, five nuclear reactors at two Japanese power plants lost their cooling ability, forcing authorities to evacuate thousands of residents.

Japan's Kyoto news agency and other domestic media reported that at least 1,000 people likely were dead, most of whom appeared to have drowned. The official death toll, as of late Saturday morning, was 287. In addition, 725 people were missing and 1,046 were injured, the National Police Agency reported.

Hours after the tsunami hit Japan, the waves washed ashore on Hawaii and along the U.S. West Coast, where evacuations were ordered from California to Washington, and damaged harbors and marinas. The entire Pacific had been on alert, including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska, but the waves were not as bad as expected.

President Barack Obama said he was "heartbroken" by the disaster and pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" situation.

Monumental tasks ahead

As dawn broke Saturday, the enormous scale of destruction became clearer. Aerial scenes of the northeastern town of Ofunato showed homes and warehouses in ruins. Sludge and high water spread over acres of land, with people seeking refuge on roofs. At one school, a large white "SOS" had been spelled out in English.

A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot flames whipping into the sky.

Most trains in Tokyo started running again Saturday after the city was brought to a near standstill Friday. Tens of thousands of people were stranded with the rail network down, and the streets were jammed with vehicles trying to get out of the city.

Japanese officials still were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction throughout the country. "We don't even know the extent of damage," said Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture. "Roads were badly damaged and cut off as the tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things."

Worry over nuclear plants

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, radiation levels had jumped 1,000 times normal inside one nuclear power unit and were measured at eight times normal outside the plant. States of emergency had been declared at five reactors because their cooling functions had ceased to work.

The tsunami that crashed ashore surged several miles inland throughout northeastern Japan before retreating.

Fishing boats and other vessels rode high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Ships in port crashed against each other.

The magnitude of the quake, which shook buildings as far away as Tokyo, was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. It ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900.

William M. Tsutsui, a professor of Japanese business and economic history at Southern Methodist University, was getting off a bus when the ground began to shake. "What was scariest was to look up at the skyscrapers all around," he said. "They were swaying like trees in the breeze."