Timeline: How Japan's disaster unfolded

The numbers:

10,000 Minimum death toll expected

2400 Confirmed dead

10,000 Missing among the 17,000-population coastal town of Minamisanriku

12,000 Rescued so far

590,000 Evacuated from their homes since the earthquake struck

215,000 Sheltering in makeshift rescue centres in the worst hit areas

100,000 Japanese soldiers involved in humanitarian aid

43 billion dollars of estimated damage

8000 times more intensity in the Japan earthquake than the February 22 Christchurch aftershock

8 times the allowed annual radiation levels recorded in a single hour at the Fukushima nuclear plant

- NZ Herald staff