People who survived the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are now facing up to another grim task - finding out what happened to missing loved ones.
People who survived the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are now facing up to another grim task - finding out what happened to missing loved ones.
For many that means a desperate search in places that were familiar but which have now been left unrecognisable by the devastation.
Sky News Asia Correspondent Holly Williams has been to Iwanuma in the Miyagi prefecture, one of the regions worst hit by the quake and tsunami.
Her report contains pictures of a dead body.
She met a woman who had spent two days looking for her missing 99-year-old mother in government evacuation camps.
As a last resort the woman had headed to her mother's home in Iwanuma, only to find it had been completely destroyed.
Try as she might she was unable to find a single trace of the property amongst all the debris.
The authorities have expressed fears that more than 10,000 people may have been killed by the quake and tsunami that followed.
A massive search and rescue operation has been launched, boosted by crews from the UK and other countries.
But it will be days, if not weeks, before the full extent of the losses is known.
South of Sendai, in one of the worst affected areas, Williams visited the villages of Fujitsuka and Idohama.
In one, she and her team were turned back by villagers. The second was flooded and under water.
Rescue workers arriving there said it would hard to find bodies as there was just too much water.
There was no food or fuel in the area, with nothing open.