Two to three hundred bodies have been found in a north-eastern coastal area of Japan after a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami.

The bodies were found in Sendai city, the closest major city to the epicentre, police said.

The magnitude 8.9 quake and seven-metre tsunami were followed by more than 50 aftershocks for hours, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.

Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicentre.

Earlier, police confirmed at least 60 people had been killed and 56 were missing.

The death toll was likely to continue climbing given the scale of the disaster..

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