Above, smoke billows from fires raging at the port in Tagajo in Miyagi Prefecture. Japan has been battling a feared meltdown of two reactors at a local nuclear plant.
Residents of Tagajo navigate their way past debris on a street in the twon. Police have warned that the death toll in tsunami-hit Miyagi Prefecture alone could exceed 10,000.
Rescue workers remove cars upended by the tsunami at the shipping port to the east of Sendai in Miyagi.
A soldier pulls a rubber dinghy carrying evacuated people at Ishinomaki city. About 310,000 people have been evacuated to emergency shelters, many of them still without power.
A man fetches his son’s schoolbags from a collaped house in Tagajo.
A girl surveys tsunami damage to Ishinomaki city in Miyagi.
All photographs: AFP/Getty Images