Tokyo, Mar 11 (PTI) Japan's most powerful earthquake of 8.9 magnitude in nearly a century today triggered a massive tsunami that swept everything that came in its path, including houses, ships and cars and set buildings on fire, killing at least 60 people.

The toll could go up significantly as reports of damage to buildings in the quake were yet to come.

A ship carrying about 100 people was washed away by the huge 33-foot tidal waves in Japan's northeast coast and its fate was not known, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing Miyagi prefecture police.

A wall of water several kilometres wide triggered by the earthquake, the most powerful since the 1923 tremor in Great Kanto area in Tokyo and its vicinity which was 7.9 on Richter scale and had killed more than 140,000 people, carried all that it destroyed deep into the mainland.