A very regretful disaster has been occured in Japan. In this tragedy at least 613 people have been confirmed killed in the massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan but the government voiced fears that more than 1,000 had died.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s right-hand man and top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said “it is believed that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives”.

Amid a mass rescue effort there were grim updates indicating appalling loss of life from along the hard-hit east coast of northern Honshu island, where the monster waves destroyed more than 3,000 homes.

On Saturday, the day after the devastating catastrophe, the National Police Agency said 413 people had been confirmed dead and 784 missing, with 1,128 injured in the massive quake and tsunami disaster.

Police in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, separately said Friday that at least 200 and up to 300 bodies had been found on the shore. The defence ministry said about 1,800 homes in Minami Soma, Fukushima prefecture, were destroyed, while in Sendai authorities said 1,200 houses were toppled by the tsunami.

Thousands more homes were destroyed in a string of coastal towns including Ofunato, which on Friday reported 300 houses collapsed or swept away. The monster quake was the strongest recorded in the seismically unstable archipelago, located on the “Pacific Rim of Fire”.

In the quake hit areas, 5.6 million households had no power Saturday and more than one million households were without water.

Johnson, 34, of Jackson, is a senior aide to Sen. Thad Cochran. She is in Japan as part of the Mansfield Fellowship Program, which enables federal government employees to develop an in-depth understanding of Japanese government.

Japan is most famous country in earthquakes because Japan is located on the edge of the Eurasian Plate near its boundary with the Pacific Plate, Japan has been struck by many earthquakes. The country has even been called the world's earthquake factory. On September 1, 1923, at two minutes before noon, a tremendous quake shook Japan's Sagami Bay region, near the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama.

Japan’s meteorological agency warned that a tsunami as high as 20 feet could strike the coast near Miyagi prefecture, closest to the epicentre. Smaller tsunamis of up to 50 centimetres reached some coastal communities, the agency said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami warning was in effect for Japan, Russia, Marcus Island and the Northern Marianas. A tsunami watch has been issued for Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and US state of Hawaii.

The quake struck at 2:46 p.m. at a depth of 10 kilometres, about 80 miles off the eastern coast, the meteorological agency said. The area is 240 miles northeast of Tokyo. In downtown Tokyo, large buildings shook violently and workers poured into the street for safety.

Footage on national broadcaster NHK from their Sendai office showed employees stumbling around and books and papers crashing from desks.

Police and coast guard officials said they were assessing possible damage from the quake.

There are many quakes had hit the same region in recent days, including a 7.3 magnitude one on Wednesday.