The total number of people who died in the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated northeast Japan on March 11th this year has officially reached 12,898, while 14,824 people are still missing: In Miyagi, the count so far is 7,869 dead while 6,478 are still missing; in Iwate figures show 3,766 dead and a further 4,707 missing and in Fukushima the total number of dead so far stands at 1,201 with 3,535 yet to be found.

Furthermore, more than 153,000 people continue to be housed in over 2,300 temporary shelters, most of which are located in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, the three provinces most affected by the catastrophe.

On Thursday, some 300 police officers began a search for earthquake and tsunami victims in the 20-kilometre radius exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant, where they expect to find more than 2,000 lifeless bodies.

Up until now, no searches had been carried out in this area due to fears for the high levels of radioactivity coming from the damage nuclear plant.