Police in Japan’s north-eastern Miyagi prefecture said they had estimated the death toll in Miyagi to exceed 10,000. Miyagi is one of the areas worst affected by a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that hit Friday.
Miyagi police spokesman Go Sugawara said on Sunday that the prefecture’s police chief told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths in the prefecture was more than 10,000.
There were only 379 officially confirmed deaths in Miyagi out of a total of 801 as of Sunday afternoon.
