Post date: Apr 03, 2011 1:31:31 PM
A massive three day joint operation by Japanese and U.S. forces to find those missing since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami comes to a close.
JAPAN-LATEST - The final hours of a massive three day operation to find those missing since Japan's devastating March 11th earthquake.
Some 12,000 people have been confirmed dead but 15,000 are still unaccounted for.
The resulting tsunami turned inland areas into vast marshes, and it is here and by the sea that search crews were looking on Sunday.A team consisting of over 25,000 people from the Japanese Self Defence Force, police, coast guard and U.S. forces combined to look for bodies.
120 aircraft and 65 vessels were involved in the search.
At the Fukushima power plant meanwhile - the site of the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl - the bodies of two men found in reactor four have been identified.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary confirmed they were Tokyo Electric Power workers who died during the tsunami - not from radiation.
(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) JAPANESE CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY YUKIO EDANO:
"It was reported to me today that two Tepco employees were found dead, although this was due to the March 11th earthquake. May they rest in peace."
Officials at the Fukushima site - which suffered multiple explosions after the tsunami - are now working to seal a crack that has been leaking radiation into the ocean from the crippled reactor.
Simon Hanna, Reuters.