As officials desperately tried to prevent disaster at a damaged nuclear facility, hopes faded for finding survivors amid the rubble as snow and cold blanketed the areas most affected by the earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan. Residents were allowed back into damaged areas for the first time since the disaster to inspect what might be left of their homes. And flights out of Japan were full as foreign nationals and others left the country. The Big Picture continues special daily coverage of the disaster through tomorrow, with later updates anticipated as events merit. -- Lane Turner (27 photos total)
Sixty-six-year-old Yoshikatsu Hiratsuka cries in front of his collapsed house with his mother still missing, possibly buried in the rubble, at Onagawa town in Miyagi prefecture on March 17. The official number of dead and missing after a devastating earthquake and tsunami that flattened Japan's northeast coast is approaching 15,000, police said. (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)
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