MORE than 21,000 DEAD or MISSING in JAPAN

The number of dead or missing from Japan's worst natural disaster in nearly a century neared 21,000.

Police told they believed more than 15,000 people had been killed in Miyagi prefecture.

 "Will need to secure facilities to keep the bodies of more than 15,000 people", said Miyagi police chief Naoto Takeuchi.

It guess that the official death toll rose to 8,133, with 12,272 people missing. It is looking increasingly clear that the death toll will top 20,000 people at least.

Amid the devastation on the northeast coast left by the March 11 quake and tsunami, police reported an astonishing tale of survival with the discovery of an 80-year-old woman and her 16-year-old grandson alive under the rubble.

Food contaminated with radiation was found for the first time outside Japan where milk and spinach have already been tainted by a plume from Fukushima -- as Taiwan detected radioactivity in a batch of imported Japanese fava beans.

The Fukushima plant was struck on March 11 by a massive earthquake and tsunami which, with 8,199 people confirmed killed, is Japan's deadliest natural disaster since the Great Kanto quake levelled much of Tokyo in 1,923.

The quake and ensuing 10-metre tsunami devastated Japan's north east coastal region, wiping towns off the map and making more than 3,60,000 people homeless in a test for the Asian nation's reputation for resilience and social cohesion.

Food, water, medicine and fuel are short in some parts, and low temperatures during Japan's winter are not helping.

The traumatic hunt for bodies and missing people continues.

"This morning my next door neighbour came crying to me that she still can't find her husband. All I could tell her was, 'We'll do our best, so just hold on a little longer,'" said fire brigade officer Takao Sato in the disaster zone.

About 2,57,000 households in the north still have no electricity and at least 1 million lack running water, reports Reuters.

At shelters, some grandparents are telling children stories of how they overcame hardships in their own childhood during and after World War II, which left Japan in ruins.

"We have to tell our young people to remember this and pass on our story to future generations, for when they become parents themselves," said Shigenori Kikuta, 72.

"We have to live at whatever cost."