A massive recovery mission was launched Friday involving thousands of Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) personnel and U.S. military troops to find and retrieve bodies still unaccounted for in the wake of the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami that pummeled the northeastern Pacific region of Japan.

Some 8,000 SDF personnel and about 7,000 U.S. military troops will take part in the intensive search and recovery operation that will also utilize the resources of local and national police forces as well as fire departments and the Japan Coast Guard, the defense ministry said.

Japanese and U.S. troops deployed 120 aircraft and 65 vessels to be used in the three-day mission to search coastal areas where homes, businesses, schools, ships and cars were swept away by massive torrents of water following the 9.0-magnitude quake, which left some 28,000 people dead or missing.

Many victims of the quake and ensuing tsunami are believed to have been swept out to sea by the surging tsunami and the huge recovery operation has been launched to coincide with favorable tidal patterns which will make it easier to detect bodies, the ministry said.

Special divers from the SDF have been mobilized to conduct underwater search and recovery activities over the three days in a bid to bring some closure to the thousands of families that are still desperately awaiting news of lost love ones, three weeks after the quake rocked Japan, the defense ministry said.

However, the search will not be conducted within a 30-km evacuation zone of the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as radiation in the area remains at fluctuating levels deemed too dangerous for the troops, the ministry said.

Local police in Fukushima Prefecture believed that upwards of 1, 000 bodies still remain uncollected within the evacuation zone around the volatile nuclear plant and are being exposed to increasing levels of radiation day-by-day as they decompose.