Japanese police, dressed in protective gear, today began searching for some 2,500 people missing within a 10-20 kilometre radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.A team of about 300 police officers searched for the missing in part of the city of Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, while measuring radiation levels.Japan's Self-Defence Forces and US forces have not conducted search and recovery of bodies in the 10-20 km zone from where residents were instructed to leave as radiation levels were high. Kyodo news agency says, the Fukushima Prefectural police, helped by the Tokyo metropolitan police department, launched the search as the radiation levels have stabilised there.Japan's National Police Agency put the number of people killed in the disaster at 12,596 .