Massive Search for Japan Quake Bodies Amid Report Nuclear Threat Receding

Japan plans to send more than 20,000 soldiers into its northern disaster zone Monday in an intensive mission to recover the bodies of those killed in last month's earthquake and tsunami.

More than 12,000 people are missing and presumed dead from the twin disasters that hit March 11. Some were likely swept out to sea, while others are buried under the mass of rubble. About 14,300 are confirmed dead.

Defense Ministry spokesman Ippo Maeyama said Sunday that the military would send 24,800 soldiers to carry out a two-day search of the area. Police, coast guard and U.S. troops will also be involved.

Agriculture officials also plan to enter the evacuation zone around a stricken nuclear plant to check the fate of hundreds of thousands of animals abandoned by fleeing farmers.

Meanwhile, the Japanese prime minister's special advisor on the nuclear crisis says the immediate risk of a major radiation leak from the Fukushima power plant has receded, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The government could not say the situation had been completely stabilized at the plant, but after studying the possibility of severe deterioration Tokyo was comfortable with the current evacuation policy, Goshi Hosono told the paper in an interview Saturday.

"There is no way Tokyo or Kyoto will come into harm's way," said Hosono, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's special advisor on management of the nuclear crisis.

The atomic plant, where reactor cooling systems were knocked out, has been hit by a series of explosions and leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.