Japanese Emperor Akihito has said he is "deeply worried" about the crisis his country is facing following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
In a rare appearance, Akihito went on live TV to make his first public comments on the disaster, and said he was praying for the people.
The emperor spoke after technicians were forced to temporarily abandon a quake-crippled nuclear plant.
The 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami has killed thousands of people.
TV stations interrupted programming to show the sombre-looking emperor describing the natural disaster as "unprecedented in scale".
The 77-year-old said: "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times."
Akihito said he prayed that every victim of the quake and tsunami could be saved.
Thousands are missing and at least 10,000 feared dead after the disaster, which flattened swathes of the country's north-east coast.
Engineers are meanwhile racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
On Wednesday morning, yet another fire broke out in one of the reactors, while smoke or steam billowed from another part of the plant.
The authorities have been using a helicopter to try to douse the facility.
The plant - 220km (140 miles) north of Tokyo - was rocked by the first in a series of explosions on Saturday.
