SHATTERED Japan is braced for a fresh quake nightmare - with a mega aftershock likely to hit at any moment.
The alert was issued as millions who survived the tsunami that devastated the hi-tech superpower spent a third day without food, water or electricity - and amid heightening fears of nuclear catastrophe.
Earlier today there was a SECOND blast inside the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company said 11 workers were injured and seven were missing after the hydrogen explosion in the No3 reactor.
Japan's world-renowned centre for earthquake prediction said there was a seven-in-ten chance of a tremor with a magnitude of seven or more hitting "within the next three days".
Destruction ... a giant tanker washed ashore near Sendai and train carriages near Fukushima
The heartbreaking warning raised the spectre of another tsunami like the one that was last night feared to have killed up to 20,000.
The escalating fear of a giant aftershock came amid more scares at Japanese nuclear power plants.
Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the core container at the reactor was intact and the fresh explosion was unlikely to have led to a large escape of radioactivity.
But the US announced that it was moving its forces away from Japan after radiation was detected by its ships 100 miles offshore from an earlier.
Hydrogen blast ... Fukushima nuclear plant
Devastation ... before and after pictures of the Sendai area of Japan
The explosion was similar to an earlier one at a different unit of the facility beleived to have led to the release of radiation.
Mr Edano said people within a 12-mile radius were ordered inside following the explosion, which was felt 30 miles away.
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