New York – Nikon reports that one employee died and three
are still missing due to the Japan earthquake and that some of its affiliated
plants in the region have begun or will begin production soon.
Buffalo Technology said
it did not suffer any major damage to its business from the March 11 earthquake
although it has a sales office in Sendai.
The camera company said the employee was with the Sendai
Nikon Corporation. Safety of three employees is not yet confirmed in the area
of Natori City, Miyagi prefecture.
In terms of manufacturing plants and facilities, one of
Nikon’s plans and seven of its manufacturing subsidiaries are located in Miyagi
prefecture, Tochigi Prefecture and Ibaraki Prefecture in the earthquake and
tsunami region and operations have been suspended at all of those facilities.
At Tochigi Nikon Corporation, operation has started from
Friday, March 18. At Sendai Nikon Corporation and Miyagi Nikon Precision Co.,
both of which have been severely damaged, operation is expected to resume by
the end of this March. Operation at the remaining facilities will start
tomorrow on March 23.
In the prepared statement Nikon said, “Even after
operation resumes, we have a concern that the situation may happen where our
production cannot fully satisfy our customers’ requirement due to inability of
full swing production caused by problems such as the planned blackouts of
electricity and procurement of components from our business partners. While we
will do our utmost effort to overcome such expected difficulties, we will be
most grateful if our customers could understand such circumstances.
The company added, “We assure to extend our best support
for restoration of the facilities hit by the disaster to our customers of
Precision Equipment and Instruments business, and repair/servicing to our
customers of Imaging business suffering from the disaster.”
Buffalo Technology said
it did not suffer any major damage to its business from the March 11 earthquake
even though it has a sales office in Sendai.
The company is
headquartered in Nagoya, Japan, which is about 400 miles south of the impacted
zone. Its sales and engineering offices in Tokyo did receive some damage, and
the company also has a sales office in Sendai, directly in the worst affected
area, said Brian Verenkoff, Buffalo’s business development director, but he did
not have any direct news regarding its status.
The company’s biggest
problem is getting finished product shipped out of the country, he said, adding it had enough components on hand that supply should not be an issue until late April.
