Toyota has stopped production at plants in northern Japan and is assessing damage after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast, shaking buildings violently as far away as Tokyo.
Toyota said it was evacuating workers from several factories in the quake zone. Toyota has two parts plants in northern Japan and it has two affiliates, Kanto Auto Works Ltd. and Central Motors Co, that assemble small cars in the region.
Toyota is one of the few Japanese automakers with a large manufacturing presence in northern Japan, a region it wants to make a centre for small car production. In January, its Central Motors subsidiary opened a new assembly plant just an hour's drive from Sendai. That plant, with a capacity of 120,000 vehicles, makes the Toyota Yaris.
Toyota's Kanto Auto Works has another assembly plant in the neighbouring prefecture of Iwate.
