Still smouldering: White smokes rise from burning house in Yamadamachi in Iwate, today after the earthquake caused pandemonium in the area

These were the apocalyptic scenes captured from the skies above north-eastern Japan yesterday.

Four entire trains carrying ­hundreds, possibly thousands of passengers, vanished after the earthquake. At least one was a high-speed Japanese ‘bullet’ train. Rail operators lost contact with them as they operated on coastal lines on Friday.

East Japan Railway Company admitted it did not know how many people were on board.

As well as the ships seen here, a cruise liner is said to have simply vanished with hundreds of holidaymakers on board.

Kesennuma – near the off-shore epicentre of the magnitude 8.9 quake – has been burning furiously, with broadcasters reporting that fires are spreading out of control.

Aerial footage of the city, home to 74,000, shows the whole area engulfed in flames.

Catastrophe: The true scale of the devastation that the tsunami unleashed is clear in this picture of the port city of Minamisanriku town where 10,000 people are unaccounted for

Witnesses said the fires were caused after the tsunami smashed into cars, causing them to leak oil and gas. They described a city of ‘fire and water’ – what is not ablaze is submerged.

Officials said the number of dead was likely to soar as thousands were still unaccounted for. An estimated 215,000 survivors have been placed in makeshift shelters.

A huge international rescue effort was also underway and a British team was preparing to fly out. The fate of residents of the shredded flats of Rikuzentakata, also on the north-east coast, was not clear last night.

Footage broadcast on Japanese TV showed that minutes before the ­tsunami struck, it appeared a ­typical Japanese town moving towards rush hour, with hundreds of cars on the roads.

Then, as the torrent of water sweeps in, the entire region merges into the sea, causing a flood that few would be able to survive.