There were fears of a far higher death toll from the disaster that wiped out vast areas along the Pacific coast of northern Honshu island.

The national police agency said 8,133 people had been confirmed dead and 12,272 officially listed as missing a total of 20,405 as of noon (1500 GMT) Sunday as a result of the March 11 catastrophe.

Miyagi prefecture was worst hit, with a confirmed death toll of 4,882.

But the Miyagi police chief Naoto Takeuchi told a Sunday task force meeting that the prefecture alone "will need to secure facilities to keep the bodies of more than 15,000 people," Jiji Press reported.

The second-worst hit prefectures were Iwate with 2,525 confirmed deaths, then Fukushima with 670 lives lost.

The death toll has now well surpassed that of the 7.2-magnitude quake that struck the western Japanese port city of Kobe in 1995, killing 6,434 people.

The March 11 quake has become Japan's deadliest natural disaster since the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which killed more than 142,000 people.

More than 360,000 people have been displaced from their homes and taken shelter in evacuation facilities in 15 prefectures.