It too now lies buried beneath the silt, mud and debris swept inland by the 33ft tsunami triggered by Japan's strongest ever earthquake. The two ports lie in the densely populated coastal region around 130 miles north-east of Tokyo that took the full brunt of the waves. Pictures of Minamisanriku and Kesennuma, taken before the quake struck at 2.46pm local time on Friday, show bustling docks, where local fishermen would unload their catch every day, and sandy beaches, where parents relaxed at weekends while their children splashed in the waters of the Pacific. Further inland stand modern office blocks, shopping centres and factories, and low-rise homes in tightly-packed neighbourhoods. Now both towns lie shattered, with hundreds of buildings buried beneath thick mud. Only a few high-rise buildings and the roofs of large factories and warehouses remain visible above the quagmire.

One starkly dramatic photograph shows Minamisanriku's only public hospital, surrounded by a wasteland. Television footage taken from a helicopter hovering above the building showed about 200 frantic survivors who had managed to make their way to the flat roof. At least seven of the hospital's patients died overnight. Those who made it through to the morning waited patiently, desperate for food and water. "We have about 20 patients who need treatment and shipments to other hospitals," Mitsuya Sakuma, a hospital official, told Japan's national broadcaster, NHK. "We are hoping for immediate evacuation." The plight of Minamisanriku, a town of around 17,000 people first began to emerge on Saturday morning, when the local council announced that around 10,000 people were unaccounted for following the disaster. The authorities were able to confirm that around 7,500 people had been evacuated to 25 shelters in the immediate aftermath of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake, but since then they had been unable to make contact with thousands of others, hundreds of whom were feared dead.

Tomohiko Kato, an official of the disaster bureau in the prefecture of Miyagi, said that it had managed to contact at least 7,500 local residents at shelters and in their homes. "But our monitoring operations have been hampered with debris and mud," he added. "Even helicopters can't approach some of the shelters. I'm afraid that it will take more time to finish our confirmation procedures." In the playground of one of Minamisanriku's schools stranded residents had written out the letters SOS using what appeared to be lengths of white rope to attract the attention of rescue helicopters. Judith Kawaguchi, a reporter with the local television channel NHK, used her Twitter page to tell of the scenes of devastation in Minamisanriku. She wrote: "10,000 ppl missing. horrible, whole town is gone. highway broken into bits, in mud, all mud, all gone."

Later, she added: "incredible devastation, all buildings except hospital are gone, highway in pieces. only 3 buildings standing, hospital, some wedding place and one more building. rest are gone." In Kesennuma, fire had replaced the waves as the principal source of danger on Saturday night. Blazes which began amid the chaos wrought by the tsunami were spreading out of control. Night-time aerial footage showed huge tracts of the city, home to 74,000 people, engulfed in flames. Witnesses said the fires began after the tsunami hit an oil tanker at the port. The flames then spread inland along the river towards the city centre. Local news agencies reported that one third of the city had been completely submerged in mud and fires continued to rage in the rubble and debris.

Public broadcasters were urging residents in the surrounding area to evacuate, warning that the flames were spreading inland. The number of casualties from the fire was not clear on Saturday night, but the Japanese media said thousands of residents remained missing. Kesennuma, like Minamisanriku, was famed for its fishing fleet, with crates of tuna and flounder landed each day. The city was one of the largest suppliers of shark fins in the country and the nearby coastline is known for its caves and rocky outcrops, where visitors paused to admire the spectacle of waves rolling in. The devastation brought on these two fishing communities was felt on the other side of the Pacific Ocean by expatriate Japanese living in the United States.

At the University of California Riverside, an exchange student watched the destruction of Minamisanriku, her home town, on television. Bronwyn Jenkins-Deas, the director of UCR's international programme, said: "All of her relatives are on the coast in this village. She's seen this [destruction] on CNN. She's been able to connect with a friend. The friend has said she looked for her family, but hasn't been able to locate them." In Boston, Masumi Kataoka was woken on Friday night by a call from her sister, who lives in Tokyo. She said the earthquake had shattered glass and shaken her home, but she was more worried about not being able to reach their mother and two brothers, who live in Minamisanriku. Mrs Kataoka said: "I'm watching online and on TV, and that area was really the centre of disaster. I've also tried, but I haven't been able to reach my mother and brothers." The scale of the damage inflicted on her home town left her under no delusions about the fate of her family. But she still managed to hold out hope. "I think it'll take time before I can reach them, so I'm just hoping they are safe," she said. "I'm very shocked and nervous." In Mito, another town in the area, long lines formed outside a damaged supermarket as hundreds waited for medicine, water and other supplies. Shelves emptied as people stocked up, not knowing how long it would take for fresh goods to arrive.

Kunio Iwatsuki, 68, said: "All the shops are closed, this is one of the few still open. So I came to buy and stock up on diapers, drinking water and food." The village of Rikuzentakata, in the far-northern prefecture of Iwate, was similarly flattened. There, survivors scrambled to retrieve their belongings, clambering over uprooted trees and overturned cars to reach homes levelled by the force of the waters. The tsunami also washed away much of Wataricho, a town of 35,000 people south of the city of Sendai which sits at the mouth of Abukuma River. Loading One Twitter correspondent wrote that she was trapped on the upstairs floor of her house. "A tsunami just hit. I am taking pictures from the second floor of my house," she wrote. "The flooding continues and I am afraid of being left behind. Please come to my rescue!" She sent three more tweets over the next five hours, each one begging for rescue, but last night her fate remained unclear. The Sunday Telegraph