Tokyo, March 26 (DPA) Snow was falling on northeastern Japan Saturday, as the cold weather held back the cleanup and reconstruction in the area devastated by the earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago.

"It's so cold that we can't do anything," one survivor told Japanese broadcaster NHK as he returned with his wife to their home.

Many of the estimated 380,000 people sheltering in refuges last week have moved into emergency accommodation erected by city authorities, or attempted to return home.

But more than 240,000 people remained in around 1,900 refugee shelters improvised in schools and municipal buildings, Kyodo News agency reported, as electricity, running water and the flow of supplies started to filter through, relieving severe shortages.

Katsuya Okada, general secretary of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, was one of several political leaders to visit the area Saturday, Kyodo reported.

Okada visited a sports centre in Yamagata prefecture where many were staying after being evacuated from around the stricken nuclear power plant in nearby Fukushima.

The general secretary of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party, Nobuteru Ishihara, visited the town of Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture, one of the hardest hit, the report said.

He was quoted as telling the town's Mayor Shigeru Sugawara that his party planned to cooperate with the government to pass a supplementary budget for the fiscal year starting April 1 to allow relief funds for victims of the disaster.

The number of dead after the magnitude-9 quake and tsunami hit March 11 stood at 10,102 Saturday, while 17,443 people were listed as missing, the National Police Agency said.