TOKYO, March 11 (UPI) -- The death toll from the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan reached at least 217 Saturday and could rise to more than 1,000, Japanese officials said.
The earthquake, which rocked northeastern and eastern Japan, including Tokyo, triggered dozens of fires and a tsunami that swept away houses, cars, ships and people, Kyodo News reported. A tsunami wave virtually destroyed the coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture, fire and police agencies said.
Miyagi prefectural police said 200 to 300 bodies had been located in Sendai's Wakabayashi Ward, which fronts on the Pacific Ocean. Authorities said about 1,800 homes in Fukushima prefecture were destroyed.
Tsunami warnings were still posted throughout the region Saturday.
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Japanese officials Saturday called for more evacuations near a nuclear power plant where radiation levels reached 1,000 times their normal levels. In the wake of Friday's quake, the government issued a state of atomic power emergency and said initially there had not been any radiation leaks at any of the nuclear power plants, a mainstay of power supply in the country, but Kyodo quoted the International Atomic Energy Agency as saying Saturday at least four nuclear power plants had safely shut down in the quake's aftermath.
The Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- which had initially urged about 3,000 people living within 10 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to evacuate -- said early Saturday a cooling system had failed and radiation may have escaped at the plant, Kyodo reported. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said cooling systems for three reactors at the No. 2 nuclear power plant failed.
Tokyo Electric alerted government officials the No. 2 plant failsafe system was not functioning due to rising temperature of coolant water.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the earthquake was the strongest recorded in the quake-prone archipelago. Its magnitude was greater than the 7.9 registered in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in Tokyo and its vicinity, which killed more than 100,000 people.
CNN quoted Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as saying the "enormously powerful" earthquake had wrought "tremendous damage over a wide area."
Aerial images of Sendai showed the tsunami tossing vehicles, construction equipment, vegetation and homes like toys.
More than 900 domestic flights were canceled as authorities had earlier closed Tokyo's main airports.
Stock markets in Asia sold off following the disaster and the Japanese yen, which had been showing strength lately, also fell.
The largest quake ever recorded had a magnitude of 9.5 in Chile on May 22, 1960.