The death count in Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami has climbed to 10,668 people, the Japanese newspaper Sankei reported on its website on Sunday, citing police data.

The total death toll from the disaster could rise much higher as the police said 16,574 people are still missing.

The twin disaster that rocked Japan on March 11 also triggered a number of explosions at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, spreading fears of massive radioactive contamination.

Radioactive pollution around the plant remains high with radioactive iodine in water at the plant's second reactor 10 million times above the usual level.

Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from the disaster zone and accommodated in temporary refuge centers across the country. The Japanese government has said the damage from the disaster could total $310 billion.

As many as 7,740 bodies have been identified and the larger part of them has been handed over to relatives. The quake and the tsunami claimed the biggest number of victims in the Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures in the country's northeast.

A total of 243,049 people are staying at temporary accommodation centers, the paper said.