FT Alphaville’s Gwen Robinson reports from Tokyo.
It began mid-afternoon — 2.46pm local time, to be precise — with the kind of gentle shaking that one accepts as part of Tokyo life, but rapidly developed into a rolling series of violent upheavals that ravaged northeast Japan and shook up Tokyo and neighbouring towns.
(See the FT’s picture gallery).
By 7pm (10am GMT) on Friday, Japan was digesting the fact it had been hit by the biggest earthquake in 140 years of seismic observation — 8.9 on the Richter scale. Still, deaths resulting from Friday’s quake were under 12 as at pixel time. Yet, the deathtoll from the Kobe earthquake of 1995 (7.3 magnitude) was 6,400.
The relatively low deathtoll from Friday’s quake — so far — is partly due to efforts by national and local governments in recent years to tighten earthquake-proofing standards in construction. Unlike Kobe, full of old, ramshackle buildings and shoddily constructed apartment blocks, Tokyo and other cities, including Sendai which was badly hit, have brought in new restrictions.
Not only that. Many electrical appliances such as heaters are designed to instantly cut off if they are so much as lightly shaken.
The collective national shock, however, is just setting in — even though everyone who lives in Japan knows that one day, the “big one” will come.
Throughout Friday afternoon and evening, local television has repeatedly broadcast shocking images of the powerful tsunami sweeping over rice fields near the coastal city of Sendai, northeast of Tokyo, carrying with it cars, trees and buildings.
Equally alarming, in a different way, were the images of a blazing oil refinery in Chiba, next to Tokyo and reports of problems with cooling systems and possible radioactive leakages at nuclear power plants in northern Japan.
For Japanese everywhere, however, the most striking thing — and a big lesson for the future, perhaps — is the fact that all mobile phone networks and most landlines went down and have so far stayed down.
The frantic efforts of relatives, business colleagues and friends to contact each other only worsened the load on Japan’s telephone systems. As of 7.30pm in Tokyo, phones were still not working.
Meanwhile, the closure of airports and suspension of all transport services generated vast queues for seemingly non-existent taxis in the cities, particularly in central Tokyo, with many commuters having to walk up to five or six hours to get home to outlying suburbs.
There is so much earthquake-related news that we’ve reproduced some of the key points affecting business, markets and general functioning of the country:
Companies and markets:
- Sony Corp: Production halted at least six plants
- Cosmo Oil Co: Refinery in Chiba, near Tokyo, burning
- Toyota Motor Corp: Three group factories halted
- Canon IncL No damage affecting production reported
- KDDI Corp, NTT Corp, Softbank and other telecommunications servers: Mobile-phone services and landline services mostly halted in Tokyko and elsewhere.
- Nissan Motor Co: Assessing damage
- Toyota Boshoku Corp: Damage at plant in Miyagi
- Seiko Epson Corp: Gathering information
- Denso Corp. Damage to plant under construction in Fukushima
- Asahi Breweries Ltd. Assessing damage
- Kirin Holdings Co. No major damage reported
- Sapporo Holdings Ltd. Assessing damage
- Sharp Corp. Assessing damage
- East Japan Railway Co. Halted train services in Tokyo area
- Tokyo Metro Co. Halted train services
- Tokyo Electron Ltd. No immediate reports of damage
And more news:
LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – Shares in European insurers fell sharply in early trading on Friday after Japan was hit by a massive earthquake, one of the biggest ever recorded. Large reinsurers — Swiss Re, Hannover Re and Munich Re — were all down more than 4 percent, off their early lows with detail still scant.
March 11 (Bloomberg) — Cosmo Oil Co.’s refinery near Tokyo caught fire and at least three other crude-processing plants and 11 nuclear power reactors were shut after Japan was struck by the world’s strongest earthquake in more than six years.
Mitsubishi Materials Shuts Copper Smelter After Japan Quake (1)
March 11 (Bloomberg) — Mitsubishi Materials Corp., Japan’s third-largest copper refiner, stopped operations at its Onahama copper smelter in Fukushima prefecture after an 8.9 earthquake struck the country, company spokesman Toshiaki Yamada said today. The smelter has a capacity of 258,000 metric tons of copper.
NEC Says It’s Assessing Damages From Earthquake
March 11 (Bloomberg) — NEC corp., Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, is checking whether its factories have been damaged by today’s earthquake. a Tokyo-based spokesman, Chris Shimizu, said by phone today
Emerging Market Stocks Fall, Set for Weekly Loss, on Japan Quake
March 11 (Bloomberg) — Emerging-market stocks fell, driving the benchmark index to its biggest weekly drop in a month, after an 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan, Middle East protests spread and Chinese inflation rose more than estimated. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped 1.1 percent to 1,103.44 at 4:01 p.m. in Hong Kong.
And a snapshot, courtesty of Reuters, as of 9:06 GMT:
- At least 10 people killed in the quake and ensuing tsunami, Kyodo news agency said.
- Quake triggers tsunami up to 10 metres (30 feet), waves sweep across farmland, sweeping away homes, crops, vehicles, triggering fires. Tsunami of 7 metres later hits northern Japan.
- Strong aftershocks hit northern Japan.
* Tsunami warnings issued for the entire Pacific basin except the mainland United States and Canada.
- Countries covered by the warnings include Russia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru.
- Hawaii orders evacuations of all coastal areas.
- Taiwan begins evacuating some residents from the east coast.
- Power cut to four million homes in and around Tokyo. Several fires blaze in Tokyo.
- Many sections of Tohoku expressway serving northern Japan damaged. Major fire at Chiba refinery near Tokyo.
- Bullet trains to the north of the country stopped. The government was to dispatch 900 rescue workers to stricken regions.
- Narita airport closed, flights halted, passengers evacuated. Tokyo underground, suburban trains halted. Sendai airport in the north flooded.
- All Japanese ports closed and discharging operations halted, shippers report.
- Eight military planes scrambled to survey damage. Prime Minister Naoto Kan asks people to remain calm and orders the military to do their utmost to act. Cabinet to meet. The government says more tsunami possible.
- Central bank vows to do utmost to ensure financial market stability.
- Some nuclear power plants and oil refineries shut down automatically. Tepco’s Fukushimi No. 1 plant had an equipment problem after the quake, but safety is ensured, officials say.
- Television reports a major fire at Cosmo Oil Co’s (5007.T) Chiba refinery east of Tokyo, and a fire was reported at JFE’s (5411.T) steel plant, also in Chiba.
* Toyota (7203.T) says stopped output at parts factory and two assembly plants in the northeast
* Electronics firm Sony (6758.T) closes six factories, Kyodo new agency reports.
* Asian shares fall after the quake hits while Nikkei still trading; European shares fall to their lowest in three months.
Related links:
Insurance in the ring of fire – FT Alphaville
Yen reverberations - FT Alphaville
Liveblogging Japan’s earthquake – WSJ Japan Real Time
Japan braces for the big one - FT Alphaville