Search and rescue teams arriving in Japan's hardest hit areas are so far finding very few survivors, after last week's devastating earthquake. The official number of deaths has climbed above 1,800, but officials fear the eventual number may exceed 10,000, as thousands of bodies are now being discovered on remote beaches. In the days since the earthquake, Japan has experienced an additional 403 aftershocks -- 32 of them with a magnitude greater than 6.0. Fire crews, rescue teams, and volunteers are now digging through the wreckage left by the tsunami, as evacuation efforts continue around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and engineers work to regain control of the failing reactors. [Be sure to see earlier entries from When the Quake Struck and Scenes from the Aftermath]
Japan Earthquake: Rescue, Recovery, and Reaction
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Firefighters search for victims Monday, March 14, 2011, in Soma city, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, three days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the country\'s northeast coast. #
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Officials in protective gear check for signs of radiation on children who are from the evacuation area near the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant in Koriyama, March 13, 2011. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano confirmed on Saturday there has been an explosion and radiation leakage at Tokyo Electric Power Co\'s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. #
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Officers look at a Mitsubishi F-2 fighter aircraft of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force which was swept by the tsunami into a building at Matsushima base in Higashimatsushima, Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area, March 14, 2011. #
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A survivor of the tsunami that swept through his village of Saito, in northeastern Japan, retells the story to a rescue team that arrived to search the area Monday, March 14, 2011. #
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Tsunami survivor Hiromitsu Shinkawa, right, waves to rescuers before being rescued to a Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer on Sunday March 13, 2011. When spotted, the 60-year-old man was floating off the coast of Fukushima\'s Futaba town on the roof of his house after being swept away in a tsunami. He was in good condition. #
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Rescue workers carry an elderly man found alive by tsunami survivors buried under rubble along a slope of a hill in Minamisanrikucho in Miyagi Prefecture Monday, March 14, 2011. #
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A British search and rescue team check their equipment as they arrive at the Misawa U.S. air force base in Misawa, Japan, Sunday, March 13, 2011. An approximately 70-strong British search and rescue team has arrived in northern Japan to help in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. #
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A monument for victims of World War II stands amid a tsunami-hit area in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 14, 2011 following the tsunami and earthquake on March 11. #
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Japanese rescue workers carry the body of a tsunami victim in devastated town of Otsuchi March 14, 2011. In the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, 12,000 out of a population of 15,000 have disappeared following Friday\'s massive earthquake and tsunami. #
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A technician of the SERTIT, Regional Service of Image Treatment and Remote Sensing, works on satellite images of the region of Matsushima in Japan, in his office in Illkirch Graffenstaden near Strasbourg, March 14, 2011. #
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Rescue workers move the body of a patient through the halls of a hospital in Minamisanriku town on March 14, 2011, days after the area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. #
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Japanese refugees rest inside a school gymnasium where hundreds took shelter in Sendai, northeastern Japan, on Monday, March 14, 2011 following Friday\'s massive earthquake and the ensuing tsunami. #
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An aerial view of a line of people waiting for water on school grounds after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake hit Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan March 13, 2011. #
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A hand of a victim is seen in the debris in Saito village, Miyagi Prefecture, Monday, March 14, 2011 after Japan\'s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday. #
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A mother tries to talk to her daughter who has been isolated for signs of radiation after evacuating from the vicinity of Fukushima\'s nuclear plants, at a makeshift facility to screen, cleanse and isolate people with high radiation levels in Nihonmatsu, northern Japan, March 14, 2011. #
REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao HEALTH
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