Photos: As Day Breaks in Japan, Full Extent of Devastation Becomes Clear

As day breaks in Japan, Reuters reports on the shocking scene in northeastern Japan.

...Daybreak revealed the full extent of damage from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in Japan since records began -- and the 10-metre high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.

...The government warned there could be a radiation leak from nuclear reactors in Fukushima whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been evacuated.

...In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for rescue, Kyodo news agency reported. TV footage showed staff at one hospital waving banners with the words "FOOD" and "HELP" from a rooftop.

In Tokyo, office workers who were stranded in the city after the quake forced the subway system to close early slept alongside the homeless at one station. Scores of men in suits lay on newspapers, using their briefcases as pillows.

Kyodo said at least 116,000 people in Tokyo had been unable to return home on Friday evening due to transport disruption.

The northeastern Japanese city of Kesennuma, with a population of 74,000, was hit by widespread fires and one-third of the city was under water, Jiji news agency said on Saturday... The airport in the city of Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, it added... TV footage from Friday showed a muddy torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbour wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.

... The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of Sept. 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.

The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion.

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