“My husband is already encouraging me to leave.” 
 
 As residents fretted, the number of deaths from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami officially topped 10,000, the National Police Agency said Friday. As emergency crews battled Thursday to contain nuclear fallout from the earthquake-hit Fukushima Daiichi power plant in northeast Japan, a nervous uncertainty spread as far away as Tokyo, 150 miles to the southwest, as radiation was reported in parts of the food chain and millions tried to understand the implications. Although Chiba officials had not banned any produce, Kumate said he has “been worried since Day One” of the disaster. In Tokyo, residents stripped store shelves of bottled water and some other basic necessities after authorities said radioactive iodine in the tap water was more than twice what is considered safe for babies to drink. Tokyo officials distributed 240,000 bottles of water to households with infants, who are more vulnerable to radioactive iodine-131. New readings Thursday showed the city's tap water was back to levels acceptable for infants, but the relief was tempered by elevated levels of the isotope in two neighboring prefectures: Chiba and Saitama. In Chiba prefecture, the water tested high for radiation in two separate areas, said water safety official Kyoji Narita. A day after Tokyo officials warned of elevated iodine levels in the city’s tap water and the national government restricted shipment of 11 leafy vegetables in several prefectures, residents scrambled to stock up on the essentials, which are now in short supply. Lighting was restored Thursday to the central control room at Unit 1 for the first time since the tsunami, but two workers were treated at a hospital after stepping into radiation-contaminated water. And the government has pledged that the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the nuclear plant, will provide stipends to farmers whose crops have been contaminated. 3 vessel still has the capacity to contain radioactive material,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said at a news conference.
– A sad milestone out of Japan: Two weeks after the quake struck, its official death toll has broken the 10,000 mark—and that number is still on the rise, with more than 17,400 missing. Police estimate the toll will surpass 15,000 in the hardest-hit prefecture alone. Among survivors, hundreds of thousands remain in temporary shelters, 660,000 homes lack water, and 209,000 have no electricity. And with the damage expected to cost as much as $310 billion, it’s set to be the most expensive natural disaster in recorded history, the AP reports. Japan has extended the evacuation zone from a 12-mile radius around the troubled Fukushima plant to an 18-mile one, notes the Los Angeles Times. Water is in short supply as bottles fly off the shelves; the government is weighing importing drinking water. Even in Tokyo, 150 miles from the plant, there are reports of radiation in the food chain. The government has now restricted sales of 11 leafy vegetables, prompting farmers’ fear for their livelihood, reports the Washington Post.