Japanese authorities say the official death toll from last Friday’s devastating earthquake has exceeded 33-hundred.

Police said that as of Tuesday, the death toll stood at three-thousand-373 and that six-thousand-746 people are missing.
Given that the official death toll does not include some two-thousand unidentified bodies that were found along the coasts of Miyagi Prefecture, the number of dead and missing is estimated to have topped 12-thousand.

Meanwhile, black smoke can still be seen rising from coastal cities, which are littered with destroyed structures and automobiles.

Search and rescue operations in the ravaged northeastern parts of Japan are expected to run into more difficulties as snow and rain are forecast for the areas on Wednesday and as aftershocks continue to hit the areas.