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(CNN) -- A historic 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami, causing deadly waves, widespread damage and fears of possible radiation from damaged nuclear plants. Here are some of the latest developments:

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

-- A dramatic rescue took place off Japan's coast Sunday, when a Japanese destroyer rescued a 60-year-old man at sea, some 15 kilometers (9 miles) off Fukushima prefecture, according to Kyodo News Agency. The man, identified as Hiromitsu Shinkawa of Minami Soma, was swept away with his house, Kyodo said, citing the Defense Ministry. He was spotted floating in the sea, waving a self-made red flag while standing on a piece of his house's roof.

NUCLEAR FEARS

-- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says weather conditions in Japan have moved the "small releases" of radiation from damaged reactors in the Fukushima prefecture out to sea, and that given the thousands of miles between Japan and U.S. territory, the United States was "not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity."

-- A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan, where excessive radiation levels have been recorded following Friday's massive earthquake, the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency said Sunday. Authorities have told the agency that the three reactor units at the Onagawa plant "are under control."

-- Japanese efforts to prevent a nuclear meltdown at the nuclear plant in Fukushima by flooding reactors with seawater are a last-ditch attempt, but do not mean that a nuclear tragedy is imminent, experts said Sunday.

-- At one medical facility in Fukushima, about 1 in 5 people being tested for high radiation levels are being referred to a hospital for further testing. A 20-kilometer area around the nuclear has been evacuated.

-- The Japanese government is assuming, but hasn't confirmed, that there has been a meltdown at one reactor at the Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan's Fukushima prefecture. Officials fear a second reactor at the site may have also suffered a meltdown. So far, there have been no indications of dangerously high radiation levels in the atmosphere, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. But the government evacuated the homes of more than 200,000 residents close to the plant.

-- Jay Lehr, science director at the Heartland Institute in Chicago, said he was "100 percent confident" that Japan would be able to solve the nuclear plant problems. "Nobody builds better power plants than Japan, because they are the most seismically active country on earth. They are built to withstand this very earthquake," he said.

-- The blast at the Daiichi nuclear plant Saturday was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, officials said.

-- The Japanese government was preparing to distribute iodine tablets to residents, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said. Iodine is commonly prescribed to help prevent the thyroid gland from taking in too much radioactivity, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website.

-- Japan public broadcaster NHK reported the country's defense ministry had sent a unit that specializes in dealing with radioactive contamination to a command post near the stricken plant.

-- Authorities also evacuated people living near another nuclear plant, the Daini facility, which also is in Fukushima. The cooling system had failed at three of the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, authorities said.

-- Earlier Saturday Japan's nuclear agency said workers were continuing efforts to cool fuel rods at the plant after a small amount of radioactive material escaped into the air.

-- The agency said there was a strong possibility that the radioactive cesium monitors detected was caused by the melting of a fuel rod at the plant, adding that engineers were continuing to cool the fuel rods by pumping water around them.

-- The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday on its website that the quake and tsunami knocked out a Daiichi reactor's off-site power source, which is used to cool down the radioactive material inside. The tsunami waves disabled the backup source -- diesel generators -- and authorities were working to get those operating.

THE SCENE IN JAPAN

-- The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan late last week rose to 1,597, with hundreds more missing, authorities said early Monday. As of 12:01 a.m. (11:01 a.m. ET), at least 1,481 people were missing and 1,923 injured, according to the National Police Agency Emergency Disaster Headquarters. The number of dead is expected to go up as rescuers reach more hard-hit areas.

-- Local media reported 42 rescues in Minami Sanriku, the town where an estimated 9,500 people -- more than half the town's 18,000 population -- are missing.

-- Delta Airlines resumes its full flight schedule to Japan on Sunday.

-- The number of dead in Miyagi prefecture alone "will undoubtedly be in the tens thousands," Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Sunday, citing the prefecture's police chief.

-- There is a high likelihood that Japan will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or above in the next three days, the country's meteorological agency said Sunday.

-- Takashi Yokota, director the Earthquake Prediction Information Division of the agency, said he based his prediction on increased tectonic activity. Earlier Sunday, Japan Meteorological Agency issued a statement saying it had canceled all tsunami advisories.

-- The U.S. Geological Survey reported scores of aftershocks in, near or off of the east coast of the Japanese island. More than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand last month, the agency said.

-- More than 3,000 people have been rescued, Kyodo news agency reported Saturday, citing Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

-- Prime Minister Kan called the natural disaster "unprecedented" and said the quake caused a bigger tsunami than expected. "We'd first like to focus on saving lives and secondly the comfort of the evacuees" and "there will be many resources that will be needed for this evacuation process," he said.

-- The 8.9-magnitude quake was centered about 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Sendai, the closest city to the epicenter. Roads and buildings showed cracks as far away as 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Sendai.

-- Residents have reported gas and water were unavailable for a radius well beyond the city of about 1 million.

-- Tokyo, about 370 kilometers (230 miles) from the epicenter, was spared major damage from the quake. But power outages and highway closures paralyzed the city as its transit network was shut down.

-- In Minami Soma, all that was left of many structures were their foundations. Only concrete and steel buildings appeared to have withstood the wash. No people were visible in the streets of the town, whose population on Friday had been 70,000.

-- The quake also disrupted rail service and affected air travel. Flight cancellations left at least 23,000 people stranded in two local airports, Kyodo News Agency said. Flights into and out of both airports resumed Saturday.

-- The number of households without electricity dropped from 6 million to 2.5 million Saturday, according to Ichiro Fujisaki, the nation's ambassador to the United States.

-- Shoppers sought food, water and gasoline from stores where shelves were quickly emptied and pumps soon ran dry.

-- Japan's major highways, large sections of which are elevated, have been closed. Some roads and airfields were washed out.

-- Automobile traffic crawled on smaller, two-lane roads as power outages left the electric-powered bullet trains sitting motionless on their tracks.

-- Collapsed phone lines and towers left communications spotty. Rescue workers heading to the stricken region had to rely on helicopters.

INTERNATIONAL AID

-- The U.S. Air Force said five HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters from the 33rd rescue squadron were bound to Yokota Air base to participate in search-and-rescue missions.

-- The USS Ronald Reagan has started delivering aid in the coastal regions of Japan's Miyagi prefecture. Crew members, in conjunction with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces, have conducted 20 sorties delivering aid pallets using eight U.S. and Japanese helicopters, according to Sgt. Maj. Stephen Valley of U.S. Forces Japan. The Kyodo news agency reported that the team hopes to deliver 30,000 portions of emergency food rations in this initial operation.

-- World Vision, the Christian humanitarian-relief organization, announced plans to send staff out of Tokyo to various areas around the country affected by the earthquake. The Chinese government announced it is sending a team of 15 people to help search for survivors.

-- The U.S. State Department will on Sunday send a consular support team into the Sendai area near the earthquake's epicenter, while adding personnel to the U.S. Tokyo embassy in an effort to aid American citizens.

-- Ten U.S. Navy ships are bound for Japan carrying humanitarian aid and emergency crews in effort to aid in disaster relief, according to Anthony Falvo, a Navy public affairs officer.

-- At least 48 other countries and the European Union also have offered relief to Japan, and supplies and personnel are already on the way.

-- The British government will dispatch a team of 59 fire service search-and-rescue specialists, two rescue dogs and a medical support team to join the international relief effort in Japan. They will take up to 11 tons of specialist rescue equipment, including heavy lifting and cutting equipment to save the lives of people who are trapped in the debris.

-- In Shiroishi, a town near the area hardest hit by the quake, two SH-60 helicopters from the U.S. Naval Air Facility Atsugi delivered 1,500 pounds of rice and bread donated by people in Ebina, southeast of Tokyo, the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement Saturday.

-- The III Marine Expeditionary Force, based on the island of Okinawa, south of Japan, said it was "prepositioning forces and supplies in support of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations."

-- The U.S. Agency for International Development said it was deploying two urban search-and-rescue teams, one from Fairfax County, Virginia, and the second from Los Angeles County. The Virginia team departed Washington on Saturday and was stopping in Los Angeles to pick up the second team.

-- Google said it has launched an online database to help people in Japan find their friends and relatives. The service collects information about the location and condition of those reported missing.

ACROSS THE PACIFIC

-- A Senate proponent of nuclear energy called Sunday for a temporary halt in building new nuclear power plants in the United States until the situation in Japan can be examined.

-- Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a "state of disaster proclamation" after the tsunami caused millions of dollars in damage. The proclamation will allow the state to get federal funds to rebuild, the governor said in a statement.

-- Crews reopened harbors throughout Guam, Saipan, American Samoa and the main Hawaiian Islands, except for Maui, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday.

-- On the U.S. mainland, wave heights from Alaska to California ranged from less than a foot to more than 8 feet. The highest measurement, 8.1 feet, was at Crescent City, California.

-- In McKinleyville, California, three men were swept away by waves while taking pictures of the Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Two returned to shore, but one died.

QUAKE AND TSUNAMI FACTS

-- The 8.9-magnitude quake struck at 2:46 p.m. Friday in Japan, the most powerful to hit Japan in at least 100 years.

-- The quake'sepicenter was 373 kilometers (about 230 miles) offshore from the capital and largest city, Tokyo, and 80 miles from Sendai, the United States Geological Survey said. The depth was 15.2 miles, the USGS said.

-- Sendai, with about 1 million residents, is the largest city in the Tohoku region and one of the country's 15 largest cities.

-- The quake followed a series in the region this week. Early Thursday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 struck off the coast of Honshu. A day earlier, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the same coast, the country's meteorological agency said.

-- The largest recorded quake took place in Chile on May 22, 1960, with a magnitude of 9.5, the USGS said.

-- The quake Friday was the fifth-strongest in the world since 1900, the agency said, and the most powerful to hit Japan since then.

-- Tsunamis are a series of long ocean waves that can last five to 15 minutes and cause extensive flooding in coastal areas.

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