* Death toll expected to exceed 1,000 with many more injured
* State of emergency at nuclear plant after cooling systems fail
* Ship carrying 100 passengers swept away by tsunami
* Physicist describes event as one of history's 'great quakes'
* Buildings rocked in China's capital Beijing, 1,500 miles away
* First mammoth quake was followed by seven powerful aftershocks
* Tsunami warning for whole of Pacific
More than 400 passengers were feared dead as a high-speed bullet train and cruise ship went missing after the sixth largest earthquake in history devastated Japan today.
The massive earthquake - 8,000 times stronger than the one that hit New Zealand last month - sent a catastrophic 33 foot tsunami hurtling across the Pacific Ocean.
Thousands of people were forced to flee for their lives as the massive wave bore down on them, sweeping away everything in its path.
This afternoon, the Japanese declared a state of emergency at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima after the 8.9 quake caused the cooling system to fail.
Meanwhile, a ship carrying 100 people was swept away by the tsunami and bullet train carrying hundreds of passengers in the Miyagi region was missing. Their fate is unknown.
The impact of the quake is shown (left) while Yurikamome train passengers walk on the elevated track towards Shiodome Station in Tokyo's Shiodome district
Utter devastation: Flames engulf houses in Sendai, Miyagi, after they were swallowed up by enormous waves that swept through Japan after a massive earthquake this morning
At least 200 to 300 bodies have been found in Sendai city, while dozens others were reported to have been killed in other areas of Japan.
Miyagi police also said that a ship carrying more than 100 people was washed away by a tsunami, without providing more details.
Hundreds of Britons are believed to be in Japan. Many have spoken of the terrifying momentthat the quake struck.
The death toll has now risen to 300 but it is feared thousands more are at risk as the true scale of the devastation becomes apparent and the tsunami rips across the ocean.
Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.
Tsunami warnings have been issued across the entire Pacific, as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire U.S. West Coast.
Hawaii and a number of low-lying islands including Guam were hit by the waves while The Red Cross has warned that the tsunami is higher than many of the islands themselves.
The first waves hit the island of Kauai at around 3.15am local time as the repercussions of the earthquake ripped through the ocean.
Kahului, on the island of Maui, has been worst hit. It was struck by waves measuring at least eight feet.
Many people were panic buying in stores and stocking up on petrol as the wave sped thousands of miles across the sea.
The tsunami which struck Sendai on the northeaster coast of Japan which has a population of about one million early this morning.
The earthquake was 8,000 times more powerful than the one that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand last month, experts said.
It struck at 2.46pm local time (0546 GMT) and was followed by 12 powerful aftershocks, seven of them at least 6.3 on the Richter scale, the size of the quake which struck New Zealand on February 22.
Drivers were seen fleeing the waves on highways close to the coast as the impact of the huge quake swept ashore while the car park at Disneyland in Tokyo was submerged.
Dramatic footage showed the surge washing away cars, a bridge and buildings at the mouth of the Hirose-gawa River, which flows through the centre of Sendai, while a roof caved in at a graduation ceremony in Tokyo.
A large ship swept away by the tsunami rammed directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma city in the Miyagi region, according to footage on public broadcaster NHK, and numerous people are believed to have been injured.
A passenger train that was carrying dozens of travellers was unaccounted for prompting fears that it could have been destroyed amid the devastation.
More than four million people are without power and the Japanese army has now been deployed.
All UK flights to Tokyo have been cancelled. Officials were trying to assess possible damage from the quake but had no immediate details.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the Japanese earthquake was a 'terrible reminder of the destructive power of nature' and pledged to help the country.
He added: 'Everyone should be thinking of the country and its people and I have asked immediately that our Government look at what we can do to help.'
The quake struck at a depth of six miles, about 80 miles off the eastern coast, Japan’s meteorological agency said. The area is 240 miles (380km) north east of Tokyo.
Speaking on national television, Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan said: 'I offer my deepest sympathy to the people who have suffered the disaster.
‘Regarding our nuclear facilities, some of the plants have stopped automatically but so far no radioactive material has been confirmed to have been leaked to the outside.
‘Given the situation an emergency disaster response has been set up with myself as the head
‘We will secure the safety of the people of Japan. We ask the people of Japan to continue to be cautious and vigilant. We ask the people of Japan to react calmly.'
The government was preparing to send troops to the quake-hit areas to help relief efforts.
Sendai airport, north of Tokyo, was inundated with cars, trucks and buses and thick mud covered its runways.
At least 300 people have been reported dead, one of whom was hit by a collapsing wall at a Honda factory and several people are believed to have been buried in a landslide.
Thirty international search and rescue teams stand ready to go to Japan to provide assistance following a major earthquake, the United Nations said on Friday.
'We stand ready to assist as usual in such cases,' Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance told Reuters in Geneva.
'Thirty international search and rescue teams are on alert and monitoring the situation and stand ready to assist if necessary.'
Several nuclear power stations have closed down automatically in the wake of the earthquake while officials ordered 'Get out of your homes - rush to high ground,' as sirens wailed
A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara city near Tokyo and was burning out of control with 100ft flames whipping into the sky.
And another fire broke out in the turbine building of Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture.
Four Japanese nuclear power plants closest to the epicentre of the quake have been safely shut down, the UN atomic watchdog said today.
The impact of the quake remains to be seen, with its magnitude comparable to the earthquake that sparked the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, killing 250,000 people.
In Tokyo office workers cowered under their desks or stood in doorframes as buildings shook and swayed.
But it was along the coast that the worst damage and the most deaths were expected to be reported.
Bullet trains to the north of the country stopped while Narita airport has been closed with flights halted and passengers evacuated.
The quake rattled skyscrapers in Tokyo further south, where the streets around the main train station were packed with commuters stranded after buses and trains were halted.
Tokyo's underground system and suburban trains have also been halted while Sendai airport, the hub closest to the quake, has flooded.
A British Airways plane heading for Tokyo's Hareda airport had pushed back off the stand at Heathrow today when the airline decided it would not be leaving.
BA also cancelled its daily Heathrow service to Tokyo's Narita airport.
The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometres), about 80 miles (125 kilometres) off the eastern coast, the agency said.
The area is 240 miles (380 kilometre) northeast of Tokyo.
Thirty minutes after the quake, tall buildings were still swaying in Tokyo and mobile phone networks were not working. Japan's Coast Guard has set up task force and officials are standing by for emergency contingencies, Coast Guard official Yosuke Oi said.
'I'm afraid we'll soon find out about damages, since the quake was so strong,' he said.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater and on average, an earthquake occurs every 5 minutes.But Friday's quake, coming a few weeks after New Zealand's city of Christchurch was devastated by a strong earthquake, was petrifying.
English teacher Jenny Tamura Spragg, 33, described how the quake hit in the middle of a school lesson with a class full of 14-year-old pupils.
As she hid under a desk she thought: 'This is it, the end.'
Mrs Tamura Spragg, originally from Cardiff, said: 'The shakes started off slowly, but progressively got stronger.
'The children were in a desperate panic when we decided to tell them to hide under their desks. Some children were crying.
'When I finally got under a desk myself, I had time to think while the continuous tremors seemed to go on forever.
'The thought 'This is it, the end' did cross my mind as a potential reality.
'Aftershocks were quite severe for a few hours after.'
Mrs Tamura Spragg, who lives in Kumagaya, Saitama, and has been in Japan for 10 years, continued: "People here are very calm - very Japanese, so to speak.'
She said the coastal regions in the north will have been affected "thousands of times worse'.
'I was terrified and I'm still frightened,' said Hidekatsu Hata, 36, manager of a Chinese noodle restaurant in Tokyo's Akasaka area. 'I've never experienced such a big quake before.'
Asagi Machida, a 27-year-old web designer in Tokyo, was walking near a coffee shop when the earthquake hit. 'The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared. I couldn't believe such a big earthquake was happening in Tokyo.'
Kyodo news agency reported 14 fires had broken out in Tokyo after the quake, and a refinery in Chiba, just outside the capital, was also ablaze.
Hundreds of people spilt out onto the streets of Tokyo after the quake, with crowds gathering in front of televisions in shop windows for details on the quake.
Some passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers.
'I dashed out of my office. I sort of panicked and left behind my mobile phone and belongings,' said Aya Nakamura, an office worker in Tokyo.
'You see the crane on top of that tall building under construction? I thought it might fall off the building because all the buildings around me were shaking badly,' she said, standing with her colleague on the street.
The quake surpasses the Great Kanto quake of September 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. Seismologists had said another such quake could strike the city any time.
A 1995 quake in Kobe caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. For Takeshi Okada, Friday's quake was a chilling reminder of that disaster.
Impact: A mother and her daughter watch nervously as waters from tsunami waves creep closer to them in Tokyo while an elderly man in the financial district sits wrapped under a blanket
Creeping dread: In this image from Japan's NHK TV video footage, houses in Sendai are washed away by the tsunami as the waves power ashore
Chaos: Stunned office workers look on as smoke engulfs buildings in Tokyo following the tremors and aftershocks from the earthquake
