23 March 2011 - Homeless children could spend months living in unsanitary evacuation centres in spite of the massive emergency relief efforts in Japan. Half a million people, including 100,000 children, were made homeless after the disaster and people living inside these centres say they have not been able to wash properly for days.

Japanese emergency response officials have told Save the Children's staff in Japan that evacuation centres were expected to remain operational for at least another two months.

'The tsunami has wiped whole towns from the map and the people who lived there have nowhere to go,' says Stephen McDonald, Save the Children's response team leader in Japan. 'The evacuation centres were not built to support people in these numbers and many have been left unable to wash or sterilize baby feeding equipment since the tsunami struck.'

There's nothing to sterilise the baby's bottle with, and I haven't washed my hands for days. I tried to go to the city to buy some supplies, but there is nothing in the shops. I'm very worried about my daughter, especially because she suffers from poor health,' Michiko Takahashi says. Save the Children assessment teams visited one evacuation centre where flu-like symptoms were already being passed between the people living there.