Shellshocked survivors of the Japanese tsunami huddle together in the rubble: The pictures that show a shattered country laid waste

Three days after the tsunami struck the east coast of Japan, the shear scale of the devastation is still emerging as rescue efforts gather pace and residents return to flattened neighbourhoods.

But some victims are still awaiting rescue and have formed makeshift camps amid the rubble - as others begin to gather in aid centres.

Many face a fourth night without shelter, running water or power.

Members of the armed forces and rescue workers continue to help a few survivors, but many bodies are being pulled from the fields of debris.

There were also worrying scenes as residents exposed to radiation after the Fukushima reactor blast were placed in makeshift quarantine facilities.

 

Grim search: Rescue workers pulled four bodies from the wreckage of these overturned houses in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture

 

Flattened: debris scattered over a large area of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture three days after a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the coast of eastern Japan.

 

Like tin cans :the shells of wrecked and overturned cars litter the town of Otsuchicho

 

Losing hope: A woman cries while sitting on a road amid the destroyed city of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture

 

Taking stock; a man riding a bicycle and another walking through the field covered with debris in the town of Onagawa

 

Like the end of the world: debris fills a market in the village of Fudai, and the entrance to a shrine in the village of Noda

 

All that's left: A local resident looks for items from his mother's car amid mud and debris in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture

 

Waiting for rescue: Isolated survivors sit around a fire and await help in a makeshift camp near Ishinomaki, northern Japan

 

Struggle to survive: residents line up to get kerosene in Hitachi, left, and rescue workers rush to higher ground as a new tsunami warning is announced in the city of Rikuzentakata

 

Wiped out: A Japanese rescue worker walks through a destroyed residential area of tsunami-hit Otsuchi, where 12,000 out of a population of 15,000 have disappeared

 

Apocalyptic scenes: A tsunami survivor stands in a totally devastated town of Yamada in Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan

Quarantined after Reactor blast: a mother talks to her daughter - who has been isolated after being exposed to radiation in the fall out from the Fukushima reactor blast - at a makeshift treatment facility in Nihonmatsu. A man cycles past upturned cars in Nitori city

Ruined: soldiers search for victims around a ship swept away by a tsunami in Higashimatsushima City.  A woman with her pet dog and belongings pauses on the way from her devastated home in the same city

 

Homeless: Survivors of Friday's earthquake and tsunami spend time at an evacuation center in Rikuzentakata

Rescue: an Air Self Defence Force fighter pushed into a hangar by the tsunami at a base in Higashimatsushima in Miyagi,right, and Self-Defense Force members rescue a man from a car stuck on the second floor of a house in Ishimaki, northern Japan.

Shattered homes: Rescue workers search for victims maid a huge pile of flattened houses in Tamura village