Japan: A Long, Painful Reckoning

MARCH 17, 2011
By JURO OSAWA and PHRED DVORAK in Tokyo and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and TOKO SEKIGUCHI in Onagawa, Japan

The number of dead and missing after Japan's twin earthquake and tsunami stood late Wednesday, officially, at 12,920.

In reality, Japanese widely agree, the toll of last week's disaster is likely much higher. In Miyagi, a coastal prefecture that bore some of the tsunami's worst destruction, officials estimate the toll there alone will be in the tens of thousands.

Accounting for the gap between the official and true count are places like Otsuchi, until March 11 a town of about 15,000 people on Japan's northeastern coast.

Japan won't declare someone missing unless they have been reported missing. In Otsuchi, where Friday's tsunami is believed to have swept away entire neighborhoods and families, no one is left in many cases to report names. About 5,000 people were evacuated. Otuchi's dead number 221, officially. Seven are declared missing. That leaves more than 9,000 uncounted. the rest

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