Japan quake death toll passes 18,000
The human and financial cost of the tsunami continues to rise, after police estimates showed more than 18,000 people have died in the disaster and the World Bank said it may cost Japan as much as £145bn to repair the damage. The figures came as emergency workers were evacuated from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after smoke or steam was seen rising from one of its reactor units. The smoke raised concerns that water in the spent fuel pools at the No 3 unit was running low, but officials said there was no immediate spike in radiation levels. "We are checking the cause of the smoke," Hidehiko Nishiyama, a nuclear safety agency official, told reporters. Earlier, engineers finally succeeded in connecting power cables to three of the plant's reactors and said they planned to test the pumps soon.