Grim

The truth begins to trickle in.

The police chief of Miyagi prefecture, or state, told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Only 379 people have officially been confirmed as dead in Miyagi.

You might recognize it.

UPDATE: The Gray Lady weighs in, three days later.

...as the death toll from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami climbed astronomically