More news on Japan disaster

Snapshot

- Japan battles twin disasters, trying to stop a radiation leak at a nuclear plant after an 8.9 quake triggers tsunami up to 10 meters (30 feet), with waves sweeping away homes, crops, vehicles and submerging farmland. 
- Cooling system of two reactors at Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant fail on Saturday and a third reactor malfunctions on Sunday morning.
- Smoke billows after an explosion at the plant located about 250 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
- Workers douse the stricken reactor with sea water to try to avert catastrophe.
- The number of people exposed to radiation was expected to climb to at least 90
- 200,000 people evacuated from 20-km radius of the stricken plant.
- Number of dead or missing feared to exceed 1,800.
- 10,000 people unaccounted for.
- Nuclear safety agency rates the accident at four on the international scale from 0 to 7.
- Dazed residents hoard water and huddle in makeshift shelters in near-freezing temperatures.
- 5.5 million people without power, while 3,400 buildings either destroyed or damaged.
- Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan says the chaos is an "unprecedented national disaster".
- Contact lost with four trains along the coast area of northeastern Japan, Kyodo news agency says.
- International search and rescue teams rush to Japan, one of Afghanistan's most violent provinces offers $50,000 in aid.

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