Where did you hear that? Certainly not 10,000.[/quote]
Right now the BBC has “The number of confirmed dead and missing now stands at more than 11,000.” I think the confirmed dead total hasn’t yet reached 4,000, but at this point very few missing are going to be found alive in rubble. I hope there are schools full of “missing” that haven’t been contacted yet, but I fear that’s unlikely. The 10,000 figure is likely in the ballpark for total deaths, although that won’t be confirmed for a long while yet.
To be honest the quake seems a testament to improvements in Japan’s building codes and construction since the Kobe quake fifteen years back. I haven’t heard at all about buildings coming down and killing people (which isn’t to say it didn’t happen; I just haven’t heard about it) - instead all the news has been about the tsunami and the nuclear power plants. Pretty impressive that the infrastructure can handle a 9.0 quake, but at this point in time I guess that counts as a small mercy. (Yes, nuclear power plants are definitely infrastructure, but I gather it’s the tsunami that really started the trouble there.)
10,000 is a horrible number except when you compare it to Haiti (316,000 according to Wikipedia) and Banda Aceh (167,000).