2011 Japan - one week later - 2011 march 18

2. JAPAN – 2011 march 18 Radiation fears, quake damage keep the danger level high in Japan Six days after a powerful earthquake and ensuing tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, the danger level is still high. The images immediately after painted a picture of destruction and devastation. Further heavy snowfall overnight all but ended hopes of rescuing anyone else from the rubble after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami. Millions of people have been affected by the disaster - many survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food; hundreds of thousands are homeless. The national police say 6,911 people are known to have died in the disaster, and 10,316 are still missing. On Friday march 18, people across Japan observed a minute's silence at 1446 (0546 GMT), exactly one week after the disaster. Japan has raised the alert level at its quake-damaged nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale of atomic incidents. The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site, previously rated as a local problem, is now regarded as having "wider consequences". Japanese authorities are now employing helicopters and water cannons to cool reactor fuel as they struggle to avert full meltdowns at the earthquake-crippled Fukushima No 1 (Daiichi) plant. Meanwhile, basic supplies remain scarce in regions heavily affected by the earthquake and tsunami. An electricity line has been bulldozed through to the site and engineers are racing to connect it, but they are being hampered by radiation. The plant's operators need the power cable to restart water pumps that pour cold water on the reactor units. Military helicopters which dropped water from above on Thursday have been kept on standby. The battle to stabilise the plant is a race against time.

3. Tepco / AFP - Getty Images This handout image released from Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on March 17, 2011 and received via JIJI Press on March 18, 2011 shows the damage to TEPCO's No.1 Fukushima nuclear power plant's fourth reactor building in the town of Okuma, Fubata district in Fukushima prefecture. The Japanese military has used trucks and helicopters to dump tonnes of water onto the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in a bid to douse fuel rods and prevent a disastrous radiation release.

4. Tokyo Electric Power / Reuters An aerial view taken from a helicopter from Japan's Self-Defence Force shows damage sustained to the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in this handout taken March 16, 2011 and released March 17. Japanese military helicopters and fire trucks poured water on the overheating nuclear facility on Thursday and the plant operator said electricity to part of the crippled complex could be restored in a desperate bid to avert catastrophe. The complex has been torn apart by four explosions since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit last Friday.

5. Tokyo Electric Power / Reuters An aerial view taken from a helicopter from Japan's Self-Defence Force shows damage sustained to the No. 4 reactor (C) at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in this handout taken March 16, 2011 and released March 17.

6. Okumamachi, Japan — Thick white smoke billows from the No. 3 unit of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday. PHOTOGRAPH BY: AP / Tokyo Electric Power Com

7. A Self-Defense Forces helicopter scoops water off Japan's northeast coast on its way to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi on March 17. Helicopters are dumping water on a stricken reactor to cool overheated fuel rods inside the core. (Kenji Shimizu/Yomiuri Shimbun)

8. Fire trucks converge in preparation to spray water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear on Friday. Smoke billowed from a building at the crippled plant Friday as emergency crews worked to reconnect electricity to cooling systems on the overheating nuclear fuel rods. March 18. AP

9. An aerial shot shows snow covered Sendai city on Friday. March 18. - AP

10. A satellite image shows damage to the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant at the town of Okuma in Futaba district in Fukushima. Teams of Japanese workers and troops on March 18 battled to prevent meltdown at the quake-hit nuclear plant as alarm over the disaster grew with more foreign governments advising their citizens to flee. (DigitalGlobe/AFP/Getty Images

11. Radiation scanning crews check each other's levels as they change their work shift at a screening center in Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture, 60 km west of TEPCO's striken Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant, on March 18. (Go Takayama/AFP/Getty Images)

12. Officials scan people for radiation, 60 km west of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, in Koriyama on March 18. (Ken Shimizu/AFP/Getty Images)

13. Toshihito Aisawa's father, mother and grandmother are all missing. For days the 9-year-old has been desperately searching for them at evacuation centers in the Japanese city of Ishinomaki, holding up hand written signs pleading for information. On one is written their names, on the other the simple message "I will come again tomorrow." Toshihito's father picked him up from school shortly after the earthquake struck last Friday, and the family were driving towards higher ground when the tsunami struck. Toshihito and his teenage cousin Yuto managed to crawl out of the car's broken window, but they became separated and the younger boy then lost consciousness. When he came to, a man fished him out of the water. Kuniaki Nishio, a journalist with Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, met Toshihito on Tuesday as he searched for his missing relatives. The boy remained determined that he would find his family. "When the roads clear up, I'm going to check our home," he said. A family friend, 64-year-old barber Mitsunari Kitahara, who is looking after the boy, said Toshihito had not shown any emotion since losing his family. "I'm sure that it has been tough on him," Mr Kitahara said. Asahi Shimbun reported that Kitahara repeatedly told the Toshihito to "stop worrying so much" and to "come back home as soon as you can." "Yes, I'll do as you say. I won't worry about it," Toshihito replied, although the paper said "his face betrayed his show of bravery.«  Kuniaki Nishio / Asahi Shimbun via EPA Nine-year-old Toshihito Aisawa pictured at an evacuation centre in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan on March 15. He is holding two handwritten signs as he continues his search for his father, mother and grandmother lost in the quake and tsunami of March 11

14. Kuniaki Nishio / Asahi Shimbun via EPA Nine-year-old Toshihito Aisawa pictured at an evacuation centre in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan on March 15, searching for his missing father, mother and grandmother.

15. Sixty-six-year-old Yoshikatsu Hiratsuka grieves in front of wreckage where the body of his mother is buried , at Onagawa town in Miyagi prefecture on March 17. Hiratsuka kept crying out, saying "Sorry, Sorry" that he couldn't have helped her from tsunami. - The official number of dead and missing after a devastating earthquake and tsunami that flattened Japan's northeast coast is approaching 15,000, police said. (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)

16. A two-month-old baby is given a bath by volunteer Junko Sakamoto in Koriyama city on Friday. The baby was evacuated along with his parents from the town of Okuma in Fubata district in Fukushima prefecture where the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant is located.- March 18. - Go Takayama / AFP - Getty Images

17. Kesennuma, Japan — A Japanese doctor holds the hand of an elderly tsunami survivor. She was being treated at a hospital at the time of the tsunami and was shifted to a shelter for earthquake victims. PHOTOGRAPH BY: PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP / Getty Images

18. Kenji Sugawara, with a photo of his miising wife, searches for her in the remains of the devastated city of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture.- Takashi Noguchi / AFP - Getty Images

19. Takashi Noguchi / AFP - Getty Images Kenji Sugawara, with a photo of his missing wife, searches for her through the remains of the devastated city of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture on March 17, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami the hit Japan's northeast coast. The official number of dead and missing after the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that flattened Japan's northeast coast has hit 14,650, police said, a rise of nearly 1,000 in just a few hours.

20. A crying man takes pictures of a devastated area in Minamisanriku, northern Japan on Friday. March 18. - AP

21. A Japanese rescue worker holds an intravenous drip bag as an elderly survivor is transported to a hospital in Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture on Friday, March 18. A potential humanitarian crisis looms as nearly half a million people who have been displaced by the disaster continue to suffer a shortage of food and fuel as freezing weather conditions set in. - Philippe Lopez / AFP - Getty Images

22. Personal photos sit in the rubble of a house March 17 in Minamisanriku. (Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

23. Evacuee Kazuko Hiraushi, who lives in an evacuation center with her husband after their house was destroyed in the massive earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan a week earlier, observes a minute's silence in memory of the victims near a devastated area in Rikuzentakata, north Japan, March 18, 2011. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

24. Mitsuyo Murakami sifts through the rubble outside her apartment on March 17 in Kensennuma. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

25. A woman takes care of a dog at an evacuation center for pets and their owners near an area devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma March 17. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

26. Elderly women wait for rice to be given out at an evacuation center on March 17 in Kensennuma. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

27. An elderly Japanese tsunami survivor lies in a bed as a woman sorts medicine tablets at a shelter for earthquake victims in Kesennuma on March 17. (Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images)

28. A man looks for a relative at a community center used as a shelter in the tsunami-damaged town of Otsuchi on March 18. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

29. A man checks lists of evacuees at an evacuation center in Rikuzentakata March 18. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/ Reuters)

30. A man checks a list of names at an evacuation center in Natori near Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, Japan, Friday, March 18, 2011. AP / Mark Baker

31. Survivors check a message board at a shelter for earthquake victims in Kesennuma - Half a million evacuees struggled to stay warm as rescuers said their efforts to help the devastated population were at risk, almost a week after the 9.0 magnitude quake and massive tsunami hit. (Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images)

32. Some 116 countries - including here, Indonesia - and 28 international organisations are reported to have offered the Japanese government aid. The poor Afghan city of Kandahar even sent $50,000 (£31,000). - AP

33. Caskets are placed at a mortuary in Rifucho, northern Japan, Friday. March 18. - Tadashi Okubo / AP

34. Officials examine one of the bodies of victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami contained in caskets placed inside a gymnasium in Rifucho, Miyagi Prefecture on March 18. (Kyodo News/Associated Press

35. A picture released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) shows elderly people at the high school evacuation center in Ostuchi (HO/AFP/Getty Images

36. Sugawara Haruto, center, plays with other children at Sezugawa Secondary School, which has been set up as an evacuation centre and is now home to more than 280 people, in Minami Sanriku in Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan on March 17. Of the 17,000 residents that called this tourist magnet fishing village their home, more than 10,000 remain missing.-Stephen Morrison / EPA

37. A woman holds her baby at a shelter for survivors at a village that was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in Yamada, northeast Japan March 17, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won

38. A People check secondhand clothes at a shelter for earthquake survivors at Minamisanriku city in Miyagi Prefecture on March 17. (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)

39. Momoko Onodera prays as she talks about her husband who died in the tsunami at an evacuation center on March 18, 2011 in Kesennuma, Japan. Getty Images / Paula Bronstein

40. An elderly woman and a relative are reunited at a center for displaced persons in the devastated town of Otsuchi, Iwate prefecture on March 18 one week after a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the northestern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

41. Water supply has also been a problem - in Fukushima displaced residents stood in line to wait their turn at a temporary bath house rigged up by the military. - AFP

42. Victims from an evacuation center relax as they take their first bath since an earthquake and a tsunami hit the area in Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture on March 18. The bath house was reopened, offering free baths to people. (Reuters/Kyodo)

43. Evacuees eat instant noodles for lunch at a shelter in Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture on March 18. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images)

44. Evacuees rest in a shelter, 60 km from the nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, in Koriyama on March 18. (Ken Shimizu/AFP/Getty Images)

45. An evacuee, right, is checked by a doctor at a shelter in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Friday, March 18, 2011. AP / Kyodo News

46. Volunteers distribute rice balls during lunch at a shelter in Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture on March 18, 2011. AFP/ Getty Images / Kazuhiro Nogi

47. People fill containers at a water distribution point in Ofunato. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

48. A couple eats rice and vegetable handouts at an evacuation center on March 17 in Kensennuma. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

49. A couple hugs each other before one of the pair will board a flight at Narita international Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo March 17. (Issei Kato/Reuters)

50. Onagawa, Japan — A woman cries after her mother's body was found in Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture, on Friday. The area was devastated by a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami. PHOTOGRAPH BY: KYODO / Reuters