Post-spring break news roundup

The 2011 spring break season has been one of the most destructive in years.

A massive earthquake shook Japan, causing a  tsunami that tore through its cities and even hit the United States.

Both the Future and UCF News & Information have confirmed that some UCF students were in Japan during the 8.9-rated earthquake. Look for a Future article in the coming days on these students and the situation they're facing.

In other international news, Libyan rebel forces lost ground to Moammar Gadhafi's troops, failing to hold a key oil port.

Finally, rainstorms are causing floods along the East Coast.

See the Associated Press' quick roundup below:

Death toll in Japan quake-tsunami likely to top 10,000; millions without water, power

TAGAJO, Japan — The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast.

Although the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000, it seemed overwhelmed by what's turning out to be a triple disaster: Friday's quake and tsunami damaged two nuclear reactors at a power plant on the coast, and at least one of them appeared to be going through a partial meltdown, raising fears of a radiation leak.

The police chief of Miyagi prefecture, or state, told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Only 379 people have officially been confirmed as dead in Miyagi.

The nuclear crisis posed fresh concerns for those who survived the earthquake and tsunami, which hit with breathtaking force and speed, breaking or sweeping away everything in its path.

According to officials, at least 1,200 people were killed — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and 739 were missing in the disasters.

In Japan plant, frantic efforts as govt says partial meltdown is 'highly possible'

KORIYAMA, Japan — Japanese officials were struggling Sunday with a growing nuclear crisis and the threat of multiple meltdowns, as more than 170,000 people were evacuated from the quake- and tsunami-savaged northeastern coast where police fear more than 10,000 people may have already died.

A partial meltdown was already likely under way at one nuclear reactor, a top official said, and operators were frantically trying to keep temperatures down at the power plant's other units and prevent the disaster from growing even worse.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Sunday that a hydrogen explosion could occur at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, the reactor that could be melting down. That would follow a blast the day before in the power plant's Unit 1, as operators attempted to prevent a meltdown by injecting sea water into it.

"At the risk of raising further public concern, we cannot rule out the possibility of an explosion," Edano said. "If there is an explosion, however, there would be no significant impact on human health."

More than 170,000 people had been evacuated as a precaution, though Edano said the radioactivity released into the environment so far was so small it didn't pose any health threats.

After tsunami waves, Calif. coastal town left to recover from damaged port, fishing industry

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — Harbor crews are assessing the damage caused by powerful tsunami surges that pounded this northern California port, sinking or damaging dozens of boats and wreaking havoc on port facilities.

"This harbor is the lifeblood of our community," Del Norte County Sheriff Dean Wilson said as he scanned the wreckage from waves touched off by a massive earthquake in Japan late last week.

Last year saw landings of crab and fish worth $12.5 million. "The fishing industry is the identity and soul of this community, besides tourism," he said Saturday.

The region has never recovered from the loss of the timber industry in the 1980s and 1990s, and downturns in salmon fishing, said Wilson, who fished on his father's boats as a young man.

A series of powerful surges generated by the quake arrived about 7:30 a.m. Friday and pounded the harbor. Eight boats were believed sunk and dozens of others damaged; an unmanned sailboat sucked out of the harbor ran aground on the coast.

Crews are beginning the enormous task of determining and then repairing the damage to the port, where a sheen of oil floated in the basin. Seagulls feasted on mussels exposed by upended docks. About 80 percent of the docks that once sheltered 140 boats were gone.

Libyan TV says Gadhafi forces capture oil town of Brega

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libyan state television has reported that forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have retaken the oil town of Brega in the east.

The report could not immediately be verified. Libyan TV has issued faulty reports claiming territory in the past.

Gadhafi has been swiftly advancing on the poorly equipped and loosely organized rebels who had seized much of the country.

On Saturday, Gadhafi's forces pushed the front line miles deeper into rebel territory to just 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Brega, the site of a major oil terminal. Sunday's report said Brega has been "cleansed from armed gangs."

Major Republicans donors taking time to size up potential GOP candidates in 2012 race

WASHINGTON — The potential White House candidates need cash.