"New York is the hardest-hit area, no doubt," he said.

Phones in the hardest-hit areas of Japan were out of order.

But the aid has been slow to get to the hardest-hit areas.

And there's no question that some farmers in the hardest-hit areas will go out of business.

About 15% of the entire population died; in the hardest-hit areas up to 20%.

The hardest-hit area was Barguna, where 423 people were reported to have been killed, according to local officials.

It will take at least five years for the 80 hardest-hit areas to recover the jobs they lost, the report forecast.

Most of the hardest-hit areas have not yet been inspected.

Communications to the hardest-hit areas were severed so the scale of damage was not immediately known.

Officials in Solok, the hardest-hit area, said, however, that the number of dead might change because some families had reported the same death repeatedly.