Sendai Earthquake Effect on infrastructure

Port

The effects of the quake included visible smoke rising from a building in the Port of Tokyo with parts of the port areas being flooded, including soil liquefaction in Tokyo Disneyland's carpark.

Dam failure

Kyodo News reported a dam in Fukushima Prefecture failed, washing away homes. No casualties have been counted, but the Defense Ministry reported 1,800 homes downstream were destroyed.

Water

More than a million households were reported to have lost water supplies.

Electricity

According to Tohoku Electric, around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity. Several nuclear and conventional power plants went offline after the earthquake.

Nuclear power plants

Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, Fukushima I, Fukushima II and Tōkai nuclear power stations were automatically shut down following the earthquake. Higashidōri, also on the northeast coast, was already shut down for a periodic inspection. The Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant, also on the coast, was being powered by emergency diesel generators.

Separately, a fire broke out at the Onagawa plant. The blaze was in a building housing the turbine, which is sited separately from the plant's reactor.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant I and II

Japan declared a state of emergency following the failure of the cooling system at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the evacuation of nearby residents. Officials from the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency have reported that radiation levels inside the plant are up to 1,000 times normal levels, and that radiation levels outside the plant are up to 8 times allowable limits. Later, a state of emergency was also declared at the nearby Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant, as it suffered a cooling failure as well.

It was reported that the Tokyo Electric Power Company was preparing to vent contaminated steam from the reactor vessel into the atmosphere. According to Tomoko Murakami of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, this would not result in the release of significant radiation. The cores of both reactors remain hot, however, so cooling is still required. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported that due to lack of electricity, the emergency cooling system is currently running on backup battery power. Residents living within a 20-kilometer (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I plant were evacuated, as well as residents within 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) of the Fukushima II plant.

A large explosion took place at the Fukushima I plant on 12 March at 15:36 local time. Several workers were reported to be injured. Pictures broadcast on Japanese television appeared to show the outer structure of one of the buildings had collapsed, releasing a large cloud of dust and vapor. The Kyodo News and Jiji Press services reported that the plant may have experienced a nuclear meltdown just before the explosion. The blast was described as "huge" and "massive". A BBC journalist reported being stopped 60 kilometers from the blast site by police.

At 03:07 JST (12:37 GMT) Reuters reported that TEPCO plans to cool the leaking reactor with sea water, using Boric acid to prevent criticality. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said "The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn't explode." He explained that the containment building collapse was due to the falling level of cooling water creating hydrogen, which subsequently exploded. Edano said it would take about five to ten hours to fill the reactor core with sea water and around ten days to complete the process.

Oil

An oil refinery of Cosmo Oil Company was set on fire by the quake at Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, to the east of Tokyo. Major fires broke out elsewhere, such as in the city of Kesennuma.

Transport

Japan's transport network suffered. Many sections of Tohoku expressway serving northern Japan were damaged. All railway services were suspended in Tokyo, with an estimated 20,000 people stranded at major stations across the city. In the hours after the earthquake, some train services were resumed.

There had been no derailments of Shinkansen bullet train services in and out of Tokyo, but services were suspended; Narita and Haneda Airport both suspended operations after the quake, with most flights diverted to other airports until further notice. Various train services around Japan were also cancelled, with JR East suspending all services for the rest of the day. Four trains on coastal lines were reported as being out of contact with operators; one, a four-car train on the Senseki Line was found to have derailed, and its occupants were rescued shortly after 8 am the next morning.

Telecommunications

Cell and phone service is suffering major disruption in the area.

According to an unnamed official from Chunghwa Telecom, the earthquake has caused "some damage" to undersea cable APCN 2 near Kita on the eastern coast of Japan but data transmission hasn't been interrupted.

Economic impact

Economic analysts posit that, ultimately, the catastrophe will improve Japan's economy, with increased job availability during restoration efforts. David Hensley of JPMorgan Chase, citing the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake, noted that natural disasters "do eventually boost output". Takuji Okubo of Société Générale anticipated that Japan's economy will decline in March but will revive powerfully in subsequent months. He recalled that in January 1995 after the Kobe earthquake, industrial output dropped 2.6%, but increased by 2.2% the next month, and 1% the following month. Japan's economy then accelerated substantially through the next two years, at more than its former rate.

The quake has had significant immediate impacts on business. Toyota has had to temporarily close three factories in the affected region, and Nissan has had to extinguish fires at two of its factories. The Bank of Japan has set up an emergency task force to ensure liquidity in the aftermath of the disaster.

Financial markets

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Japan’s Nikkei stock market index saw its futures slide 5% in after-market trading. The Bank of Japan said that they would do their utmost to ensure financial market stability.

Other stock markets around the world were also affected; the German DAX lost 1.2% and fell to 6,978 points within minutes. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 1.8%, while South Korea's Kospi index slumped by 1.3%. By the end of trading on Friday, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index had dropped by 1.8%. Major U.S. stock market indexes rose between 0.5% and 0.7%. Oil prices also dropped as a result of the closure of Japanese refineries, despite the ongoing violence in Libya and expected demonstrations in Saudi Arabia. US crude dropped as low as $99.01 from $100.08 by lunchtime, with Brent Crude falling $2.62 to $112.81. In Hong Kong, Financial Secretary John Tsang warned investors to "take extra care" as the earthquake may have a short term impact on the local stock market.

The share prices of the biggest reinsurance companies Munich Re and Swiss Reinsurance Company fell following the earthquake on speculation that they may face losses "somewhere in the $10 billion range" even after certain costs were absorbed by Japan’s primary insurers and the government.