Japan may need five years to rebuild from the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that has caused up to $235 billion US in damage, the World Bank says.

The March 11 disaster — which killed more than 8,600 people and left thousands more missing, and ravaged northeastern Japan — will likely shave up to 0.5 percentage point from the country's economic growth this year, the bank said in a report Monday, March 21. The impact will be concentrated in the first half of the year, it said.

"Damage to housing and infrastructure has been unprecedented," the World Bank said. "Growth should pick up though in subsequent quarters as reconstruction efforts, which could last five years, accelerate."

The bank cited damage estimates between $123 billion and $235 billion, and cost to private insurers of between $14 billion and $33 billion, according to The Associated Press. It said the government will spend $12 billion on reconstruction in the current national budget and "much more" in the next one.

It said a crippled nuclear power station in the northeast that authorities are racing to regain control of is an unfolding situation that poses uncertainties and challenges. Traces of radiation first detected in spinach and milk from farms near the nuclear plant are turning up farther away in tap water, rain and even dust. In all cases, the government said the radiation levels were too small to pose an immediate risk to health, cbc.ca reported.