Officials and Tokyo Electric Power have described the combination of a powerful quake and tsunami as <i>soteigai</i>, or beyond expectations.

When the tsunami smacked into Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant was stacked high with more uranium than it was originally designed to hold.

Engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan’s tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday in an attempt to get the water pumps going.

Toyota sales dropped 16% in January as the carmaker reeled from a massive recall and rivals Ford and General Motors surged past it in the US market.