A Winnipeg woman is desperately trying to contact her sister in Japan after the country's northeast coast was hit by a massive earthquake on Friday.

Lucy Yamashita told CBC News the phone lines in Japan are so busy it's impossible to get through. She worries because the magnitude 8.9 quake is far beyond anything for which Japan is prepared.

"The buildings are built in such a way that they will sway so that they're not rigid when an earthquake strikes," she said, adding earthquake drills are done in school as regularly as fire drills in Canada, so most people would be aware of how to react.

However, neither they nor the building have ever been tested to this extent. It is the largest quake in the country's recorded history, according to officials.

"[I'm] very nervous because of the unknown. You don't know exactly what's happening," said Yamashita, president of the Manitoba Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.

The offshore quake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometres, about 125 kilometres off the eastern coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said, noting it is the biggest quake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s.

"It's just very worrying because of the potential for damage. Magnitude 8.9 is sort of almost unheard of. It's an earthquake we would see only ever 10 to 40 years or something," said Ian Ferguson, a geophysicist at the University of Manitoba.

Similar to Yamashita, Takashi Iwasaki was born in Japan but now lives in Winnipeg and is watching the disaster unfold through TV news reports.

"There must be so much happening from this but it's not me [so I am] happy in a way, because I'm not there. But [I am] sad at the same time, as I'm feeling disconnected to everyone right there," he said.

Iwasaki, who came to Winnipeg nine years ago, has been trying to call his family in northern Japan without any luck but he believed they should be OK because they live in a mountainous area.

Death toll could reach 1,000

Police in Japan say the death toll is at least 88 people with reports that between 200 and 300 more bodies have been found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai.

Dozens more people are reported missing and the Japanese coast guard said it was looking for a ship with 80 people on board that washed away in a tsunami that was triggered by the earthquake.

Vehicles and homes have been swept away, there have been numerous landslides and fires and explosions have sent fireballs into the sky.

Local Japanese media are reporting that the death toll could reach 1,000.

It's 'kind of unsettling when something like this happens because you don't know if any aftershocks are going to come back even harder than the original earthquake.'—Allan Miranda, a Winnipegger living in Japan

John Janzen, a Winnipegger who has lived in Japan for the past 10 years, is several hours south of Tokyo but felt the quake and the aftershocks.

"A lot of us thought we were sick at the time. You feel like, 'whoa, I'm nauseous.' Then you realize, oh, it's not me, the whole world is moving here when you see the lights swing and stuff," he said.

He's been in contact with friends in Tokyo where much of the damage occurred.

"Everyone is pretty nervous and Tokyo's shut down. People are staying at community centres and schools — those things are all kind of opened up and definitely there's an emergency feeling," Janzen said.

Allan Miranda is another transplanted Winnipegger who now lives in Japan. He is about 100 kilometers south of Tokyo — or 400 kilometers from the area worst hit by the quake.

He said the earthquake shook the buildings in his area for more than a minute.

"You just never know when they are going to come and where they are going to hit. It's kind of unsettling when something like this happens because you don't know if any aftershocks are going to come back even harder than the original earthquake," he said.

A 1.5-metre tsunami struck the coastline near his city following the earthquake but protective barriers absorbed the force of the wave.