Friday’s earthquake in Japan caused insured losses of between $12 billion and $25 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in history for global insurers, catastrophe risk modeling firm Eqecat said.

Financial markets have been rocked by the earthquake, and the subsequent tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan. The full extent of the destruction was slowly becoming clear on Wednesday as rescuers combed through the tsunami-torn region north of Tokyo where officials say at least 10,000 people were killed.