Tens of thousands of Japanese households remained without power on Thursday morning after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that occurred shortly before midnight, throwing a band of northeast Japan in the dark, cutting key transport links and killing four.
Companies such as Toyota Motor Corp and chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp rushed to assess the impact, with any supply chain disruption that may add pressure on the tense global exit of smartphones, electronics and automobiles.
The tremor brought back memories of most grand japan earthquake, of magnitude 9.1, which hit on March 11, 2011 in the same area and which includes Fukushima prefecture and a nuclear power plant power factory paralyzed by tsunami and meltdown. This left a Shinkansen bullet train service suspended indefinitely, and at least one main highway to region firm for safety checks.
“This one felt different (from the 2011 earthquake), it was huge. I had to hold on on something to stand on,” said Aoi Hoshino, who has a bar in Fukushima and had customers when the earthquake hit.
A of his customers shrugged off the initial tremors, but when the most grand one hit he stood up and shouted, “It’s a big one!” she recalls.
Damage was minimal except for a few photos framed and cups that fell, thanks to the rails that Hoshino had added to shelves to prevent bottles from falling in the event of an earthquake.
“For a while my hands kept shaking,” she said.
rooms of building the facades collapsed in the streets in certain areas. Television footage showed a crumpled steep tiled roof over one parked, crushed car and workers examining cracked highways.
About 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the south of Fukushima, regions of the capital Tokyo lost power immediately after the earthquake, although most recovered within three hours.
But some 5,775 households served by Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc in the northeast remained without electricity car of noon local time (3h GMT) on Thursday, although the company said it expected most to have a supply restored later in the day.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said four people was dead and the government would on high alert for the possibility of strong tremors again over the next two to three days.
At least 107 people were reported injured, several seriously, with 4,300 households also still without water in the middle of the morning. Residents of one Fukushima city formed a long queue to fill up plastic tanks with the water for use at home. Renesas, a major supplier of automotive chips, said it had suspended production at two factories in semi-drivers and partially stopped production in a third.
Among them is son Naka Factory in Ibaraki Prefecture just north of Tokyo, which provides semi-conductors to auto companies around the world that have already had to stop production because of chip shortages resulting from disruptions related to COVID-19.
The earthquake, initially measured at a magnitude of 7.3 but later revised to 7.4 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, hit at 23:36 local time (14:00 GMT) just off the side of Fukushima Prefecture in depth of 60 kilometers. The 29 kilometer deep earthquake and tsunami in 2011 off Fukushima – commemorated nationwide less than a week ago – left some 18,000 dead.
A tsunami warning was issued but canceled early on Thursday morning. Some regions reported a rise in sea level, but no serious damage was immediately reported.
The disaster of 2011 also set off collapses at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant power plant. No anomalies were reported to any power plants after latest earthquake, although authorities earlier said fire the alarm had been triggered to a turbine building at the paralyzed factory.
Manufacturers said they were trying to assess potential damage to their facilities in the region.
Toyota canceled day shift at two plants after workers were evacuated during their evening shift on Wednesday. The constructor automobile said he would decide on Thursday night shift later.
To cover the area affected by the Shinkansen outage, ANA Holdings Inc and Japan Airlines Co Ltd added additional flights to northern cities. There were no forecasts of when regular rail service could be restored.
