Tens of thousands of Japanese and foreign workers are racing against time to rescue survivors four days after the historic 9.0-magnitude earthquake devastated northeast Japan and an ensuing tsunami engulfed many coastal cities in the region.

The Japanese government has sent 100,000 troops to lead the aid effort. It has sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 110,000 liters of gasoline plus food to the affected areas.

The Japan Self Defense Forces, firemen, and police from all over the country were mobilized to search for survivors and dig out bodies.

"We are still focusing on searching for the survivors," said Wataru Suzuki, a fireman from the fire department of Osaki, Miyagi prefecture. He said it is hopelessly difficult as there are too many missing people.

The firemen used hand picks and chain saws to clear away mounds of broken timber, plastic sheets, roofs, sludge, twisted cars, tangled power-lines and household goods. Meanwhile, ambulances were on standby, and helicopters were patrolling the area.

A 15-member Chinese international search and rescue team Monday morning set out to join the relief work in Ofunato, Iwate, a densely populated coastal city severely hit by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

The Chinese team is one of the first overseas groups to join and help out with relief work in the city. Team leader Yin Guanghui said they have brought along life exploration devices and other equipment to help with the rescue.

By Monday, food supplies were shipped to four shelters in Minamisanryuku, Miyagi prefecture, reaching at least 3,000 people.

However, electricity will take days to restore. From Iwate to Fukushima, power supplies were still limited to a small urban area. Telecommunications were impossible in Minamisanryuku, Kesennuma or other seriously-hit coastal areas. Cars queued for hours to get gasoline.

According to public broadcaster NHK, some 430,000 people are living in emergency shelters and another 24,000 people are stranded. As rescue workers are struggling to reach the victims, it was estimated that millions of people were spending a fourth night Monday without water, food or heat in the cold northeastern region.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a Monday morning meeting of the government disaster headquarters that emergency workers have so far rescued 15,000 survivors.

Police said the total death toll has reached 2,414 and 3,118 were missing as of 8:00 a.m. (2300 GMT Monday).

The Japan Tourism Agency said about 1,000 of the 4,900 tourists visiting the devastated areas could not be contacted by Monday afternoon.

The Chinese embassy in Japan has not received any casualty report of Chinese nationals following Friday's colossal earthquake, Press Counselor Deng Wei said Monday.

Deng said the embassy has sent three working groups to the quake-hit areas, and the safety of up to 8,446 Chinese has already been confirmed.

Many Chinese students studying in Sendai prefecture, one of the hardest-hit regions, have been evacuated to Osaka in Southern Honshu Island to head back to China, and the rest will be evacuated to Niigata, President of Sendai Chinese Students and Scholars Association Cao Pengyu told Xinhua.

President of Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Fukushima University Zhao Yaotong told Xinhua in an email that part of the roughly 250 Chinese students studying at the university have been staying in the university's student exchange center, where there is sufficient food and water. They are considering leaving for China, fearing a possible nuclear leak at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant about 75 km away.

International Rescue Efforts Gather Pace

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with Japanese Ambassador to China Niwa Unichiro in Beijing Monday to offer continued support for Japan's disaster relief work.

Yang said the Chinese government and leaders are paying close attention to the disaster in Japan and have conveyed their condolences to the Japanese leaders.

The Chinese rescue team has started search and rescue operations Monday morning in Japan's northeastern Iwate Prefecture, and China is willing to enhance cooperation with Japan on quake relief work and post-disaster reconstruction, he said.

A chartered plane carrying the first batch of relief goods China committed to Japan's earthquake rescue operations took off from Shanghai late Monday afternoon.

The first relief package containing 2,000 blankets, 900 cotton tents and 200 emergency lights valued at 7.2 million yuan (1.1 million U.S. dollars) arrived at Tokyo Haneda International Airport at 9 p.m. Monday.

The Ministry of Commerce said Monday China will provide 30 million yuan worth of emergency humanitarian assistance to Japan, while local governments and China's chapter of the Red Cross said they will send separate donations to aid the quake relief actions.

On Sunday, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua handed over 4.57 million yen (about 55,700 U.S. dollars) in donations to victims of the quake from Chinese students, Chinese nationals and enterprises in Japan, Deng said.

Some 70 countries have offered assistance to Japan so far. Two U.S. urban search and rescue teams, with 144 staff members and 12 dogs, had begun work early Monday morning, the White House said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a U.S. disaster response team was sent to Tokyo with "people with nuclear expertise from the Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

A Singaporean 5-member rescue team arrived in Fukushima prefecture Sunday afternoon to begin rescue operations. The same team had participated in the post-quake rescue following the recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Indonesian chapter of the Red Cross has dispatched a seven-member rescue team Monday to assist rescue operations in Japan.

Moreover, the Thai cabinet Monday approved a proposal to send 10,000 tons of rice and 5,000 tons of sticky rice, as well as dispatching a medical team.

Nuclear Meltdown Feared At Fukushima Nuclear Plant

As rescue workers are racing against time, the possibility of a nuclear meltdown at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has aroused great concern among governments and the public worldwide.

A third explosion occured at 6:10 a.m. Tuesday (2110 GMT on Monday) at the No.2 reactor and damaged the reactor's suppression pool, said a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Shigekazu Omukai.

Another agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo said detectors showed 11,900 microsieverts of radiation three hours after the explosion, up from 73 microsieverts beforehand.

Later fire broke out at the No. 4 reactor, causing more radiation near the complex.

Japan's prime minister warned against further leaks and told people living within a radius of 30 km of the affected plant to stay indoors.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), owner and operator of the Fukushima complex, said it is evacuating some workers from the plant, except those who are working to cool the reactor, a sign that the situation is worsening.

Failure of the cooling function had resulted in two hydrogen explosions at the No. 3 reactor Monday and No.1 reactor Saturday respectively, damaging the outer walls. But it did not pierce the reactors' steel and concrete containment vessel.

The nuclear plant shut down automatically due to Friday's massive earthquake, but the catastrophe knocked out its cooling systems, raising fears of a major radiation leak.

Prime Minister Kan said earlier Tuesday that the government and TEPCO will set up integrated headquarters, headed by the premier, to address issues at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

While U.S. and Russian nuclear experts are rushing to Japan, it was reported that the latter had also asked the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to provide experts in a joint effort to deal with the incidents at the nuclear power plant.

The Japanese government Monday asked the IAEA to send experts to help the country deal with the nuclear safety crisis.

Planned Outage Disrupts Transportation, Production

Train and subway services in northeast Japan and greater Tokyo are being suspended due to scheduled power outages, which will be conducted in shifts of three hours between 6:20 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time.

TEPCO announced the planned blackout late Sunday, as Friday's earthquake knocked out power-generating capacities serving the nation's capital and surrounding areas. It was the first planned power outage in Japan after World War II.

However, the plan was not carried out until 5:00 p.m. Monday since consumption levels were lower than expected during the day, a TEPCO official said.

Mass confusion broke out in train stations, where staff redirected impatient crowds as a result of last-minute cancellations.

"We would like to avoid implementing rolling blackouts as much as possible, so we have been coordinating efforts until the last minute," a TEPCO official told a news conference explaining the flip-flop in policy.

Trains serving East Japan Railway Co.'s main lines in the greater metropolitan area were running at 20 percent of normal operation.

Many shops used a minimum of lighting or suspended services to help save energy. Manufacturers including Sony, Toshiba and Mitsubishi suspended production in Tochigi, Saitama, and Kanagawa prefectures.

Numerous Tokyo residents started to hoard food and water, fearing possible gas and water cutoffs due to the power outage. Bottled water was sold out in most convenience stores and supermarkets in the Kando area, although customers were permitted to buy only two bottles each.

Food and water were still in short supply in many quake-hit areas, where hundreds of thousands took shelter in schools and other designated public facilities, national broadcaster NHK reported Monday night.