Companies including Toyota Motor Corp and chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp raced to assess the impact, with any supply chain disruption likely to add pressure to strained global output of smartphones, electronics and automobiles.
One of her customers shrugged off the initial tremors, but when the biggest one hit he stood up and shouted,"This is a big one!" she recalled. But some 5,775 households serviced by Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc in the northeast remained without electricity as of noon local time on Thursday, though the firm said it expected most will have supply restored later in the day.
Renesas, a major supplier of automotive chips, said it had suspended production at two semiconductor plants and partially stopped output at a third.