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Quake Updates From Alpine, D&M, Toshiba, Fujifilm, Sony

New York – Alpine, D&M Holdings, Fujifilm, Toshiba and Sony all provided updates on Tuesday on conditions for certain facilities in Japan in the wake of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.

Alpine offices and factories in
Iwaki city in the earthquake zone in northeastern Japan were damaged, but
employees in the buildings evacuated safely, an Alpine spokesman told TWICE.

Iwati is home to seven of
Alpine’s 15 Japan-based facilities. The Iwaki facilities include the company’s
headquarters, two manufacturing facilities, one manufacturing/development
facility, and two development-focused facilities, the company’s website shows.
It wasn’t clear what the manufacturing sites build, but most finished goods are
likely built offshore.

Tokyo-based spokesperson Yoshiki  Tajima did not mention whether the tsunami
hit the Iwati facilities, although news reports said at least parts of the city
were hit.

 “I am in [the] Tokyo office, so [I] do not
know the detail[s], but this is the story so far [that] I can tell,” the
spokesperson said. In Tokyo, Alpine has two locations, one for administration
and the other for domestic sales and marketing, the company’s website shows.

 “A problem people in Iwaki are facing is the
lifeline damage, such as no water supply and lack of daily commodities,” the
spokesperson said in an email. “It seems that it takes some days to recover the
lifeline damages. The biggest concern is, of course, about the atomic power
plant, which is about 35 miles away from our office in Iwaki.”

News reports said the government ordered
people within 12 miles of the plant to evacuate and for people in a 12- to 18-mile
radius to stay indoors.

“This crisis is not only for
Alpine but all Japan, and we have to and will overcome from this tragedy,” the
spokesperson said.

Bob Weissburg, North American
president of D&M Holdings, issued a statement on two facilities in Japan.

At its Kawasaki
Office Building all employees returned safely to their homes over the
weekend and the office re-opened March 14. “While the building sustained some
damage, repairs are currently underway and we expect operations to approach
relatively normal levels within the next couple of days,” Weissburg said.

At the company’s Shirakawa Manufacturing Facility, “because the facility sustained some damage, it will
remain closed through Wednesday, March 16. During this time we will obtain a
more complete picture of the damage, put response plans in place and have
physical inspections conducted to verify the facility can be re-opened safely.
The Shirakawa area is experiencing significant infrastructure challenges,
including the shutdown of major highways, bullet train service, water supply
and potential power disruptions.”

Toshiba, a key supplier of semiconductors, said its Iwate
Toshiba Electronics plant in Kitakami City, Iwate prefecture, which produces
logic LSIs for consumer and industrial applications, was in a region “strongly
hit by the earthquake. The factory immediately came to a halt and currently
remains out of operation.” The “outlook for when the factory can resume
production is uncertain.”

Yokkaichi Operations, Toshiba’s fabrication base for NAND flash
memories, is in operation, the company said. (For more on the impact on
components  click here, and on flat-panel supplies, click here.)

FujiFilm’s U.K. unit issued a statement saying that none of
the workers in the company’s Taiwa-Cho factory were injured in the quake, but
the building, which is located 20 miles from Sendai city, sustained some
structural damage, resulting in a temporary interruption in the production of
the new Fuji X100 digital camera.

The U.K. unit said it is expecting market deliveries of the
X100 to be delayed but the company is working to minimize the disruption as
much as possible. Officials for Fujifilm North America had not responded to
queries as this went to press. The U.K. unit said “the rest of Fujifilm’s range
has been unaffected, due to manufacturing being based outside the region.”

Sony will resume operations at two factories on March 15 in
Saitama and Tochigi prefectures, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. – Reporting by Joseph Palenchar, Steve Smith,
Greg Tarr and Doug Olenick

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