1,000 washed up bodies were found scattered Monday, while 10,000 people is said have died in Japan's Tsunami

A Japanese police official said 1,000 washed up bodies were found scattered Monday across the coastline of Miyagi prefecture. The official declined to be named, citing department policy. The discovery raised the official death toll to about 2,800, but the Miyagi police chief has said that more than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in his province alone, which has a population of 2.3 million. In one town in a neighboring prefecture, the crematorium was unable to handle the crush of bodies being brought in for funerals. "We have already begun cremations, but we can only handle 18 bodies a day. We are overwhelmed and are asking other cites to help us deal with bodies. We only have one crematorium in town," Katsuhiko Abe, an official in Soma, told The Associated Press. In Japan, most people opt to cremate their dead, a process that, like burial, requires permission first from local authorities. But the government took the rare step Monday of waiving that requirement to speed up funerals, said Health Ministry official Yukio Okuda. "The current situation is so extraordinary, and it is very likely that crematoriums are running beyond capacity," said Okuda. "This is an emergency measure. We want to help quake-hit people as much as we can." More on: Geophysical Survey