Aussies in Japan contact embassy via email

Hundreds of emails from Australians caught up in Japan's earthquake have been sent to the embassy there, Australian ambassador Murray McLean says.

McLean said Australia's embassy in Japan had received about 500 emails from "people who are sending in their particulars or asking particular questions".

"We've got a bank of people on the telephones and computers responding to these people, telling them what the status of the situation is and to remain tight where they are if they are safe until there is transport available," McLean told Fairfax Radio on Monday.

He said 1995 out of 2953 Australians registered in Japan had been confirmed as safe.

He said the current death toll of about 1500 was "extremely conservative" with the figure likely to rise into the tens of thousands.

"There's been some terribly, stunningly, awful visuals of where the tsunami hit and where a town of 20,000 people have been wiped out, so I'm afraid the figure will be in tens of thousands, rather than the one thousands," he said.

But Japan would overcome these hardships, as they did following World War II, he said.

"It's really quite moving to see the dignity of the Japanese people and the calmness of them, even in the face of this amazing situation," he said.

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