The National Police Agency has confirmed 15,457 deaths, 5,389 injured, and 7,676 people missing across eighteen prefectures.
Of the 13,135 fatalities recovered by 11 April 2011, 12,143 or 92.5% died by drowning. Victims aged 60 or older accounted for 65.2% of the deaths, with 24% of total victims being in their 70s.
Save the Children reports that as many as 100,000 children were uprooted from their homes, some of whom were separated from their families because the earthquake occurred during the school day. As of 10 April 2011, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare stated that it was aware of at least 82 children who had been orphaned by the disaster. The quake and tsunami, as of 28 April 2011, killed 378 elementary, middle-school, and high school students and left 158 others missing. One elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Okawa Elementary, lost 74 of 108 students and 10 of 13 teachers and staff.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry has confirmed the deaths of nineteen foreigners.[151] Among them are two English teachers from the United States affiliated with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program;[152] a Canadian missionary in Shiogama;[153] and citizens of China, North and South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan and the Philippines.
By 9:30 UTC on 11 March, Google Person Finder, which was previously used in the Haitian, Chilean, and Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes, was collecting information about survivors and their locations. The Next of Kin Registry (NOKR) is assisting the Japanese government in locating next of kin for those missing or deceased.
Japanese funerals are normally elaborate Buddhist ceremonies which entail cremation. The thousands of bodies, however, exceeded the capacity of available crematoriums and morgues, many of them damaged, and there were shortages of both kerosene—each cremation requires 50 liters—and dry ice for preservation. The single crematorium in Higashimatsushima, for example, could only handle four bodies a day, although hundreds were found there. Governments and the military were forced to bury many bodies in hastily dug mass graves with rudimentary or no rites, although relatives of the deceased were promised that they would be cremated later.
The tsunami is reported to have caused several deaths outside of Japan. One man was killed in Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia after being swept out to sea. A man who is said to have been attempting to photograph the oncoming tsunami at the mouth of the Klamath River, south of Crescent City, California, was swept out to sea. His body was found on April 2 along Ocean Beach in Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon, some 330 miles (530 km) to the north.
As of 27 May 2011, three Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members had died while conducting relief operations in Tōhoku.
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