In Sendai survivors wait for essentials, and hope

SENDAI, Japan - People are lined up waiting for gasoline, in cars wrapped around the block. Some of those waiting have been doing so for half a day - and they don't even know if the gas station is going to open or not.

In Sendai, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker, people wait in line for everything - gas, water, food. Everything is being rationed.

These people wait hours in line to get into the store, where they're limited to ten items per person.

While the American military is helping Japan with big things like restoring power, the Japanese relief effort is distinctly Japanese.

Food and support has come in from cities as far away as the west coast.

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The city of Sendai has opened 247 emergency shelters, housing and feeding more than 70,000 people.

This shelter serves 1,500 meals each breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The shelters are the new town square, offering a place to find the missing. Scouring shelters, these workers have found 79 missing people.

With devastation this extensive, recovery is expected to take a long time and people expect to be waiting in lines a long time. But so far they've been waiting patiently.

The official death toll is just over 2,400, but officials suspect that more than 10,000 people have died in the disaster so far.