Hundreds die in the country’s worst quake, tsunami in 140 years
Japan’s most powerful earthquake in 140 years on Friday caused massive damage in the country’s northeast, triggering a 10-metre tsunami across the Pacific basin and sending global stocks to their lowest level in nearly six weeks. Crude oil fell below $100 a barrel.
Hundreds of people had been killed in the quake and the following tsunami in the world’s third-largest economy, reports said. Tsunami warnings were sounded across the Pacific, including South America, Canada, Alaska and the US.
Several cities and villages felt violent tremors hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre. As many as 80 buildings, many of them in Tokyo, burst into flames.
As Japan counted the damage -- reports said a radioactive leak was possible at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, a refinery was on fire and thousands of factories were shut down — India Inc was on its toes, fearing for the safety of its workers in the island nation.
Nasscom, a representative body of IT and ITeS firms in India, said there had been no loss of life and property, as most Indian IT companies were located in Tokyo and Osaka regions.
Sudeep Banerjee, the CEO of L&T Infotech, said the company’s 80 employees in Yokohama, 250 kilometres from the epicentre of the earthquake, were safe.
Narrating the day’s events, he said as part of his routine, he spoke to his country head in Japan, K N Prabhakaran, at 9.30am, nearly two hours before the earthquake hit.
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Everything seemed fine then. After hearing about the quake at 11.30am, he tried to contact Prabhakaran over phone. But, the phone lines were dead. However, he soon got an email from Prabhakaran, stating that the employees were safe. Since then, he has been getting updates from Prabhakaran every hour. Banerjee is closely tracking the situation there, like most CEOs of Indian IT companies that have operations in Japan.
Infosys CEO and MD Kris Gopalakrishnan, who is in London, has been getting regular updates from Japan. Infosys’ main office is in relatively safer Tokyo. The company also has several employees in the cities of Fukuoka and Nagoya. “We are in touch with our Japan head through email as the phone lines are down. We will have to wait and see the far-reaching impact of this calamity. Right now, we are making sure that our people are safe,” he said. Infosys has over 250 employees in Japan.
India’s third-largest IT services company, Wipro, is also in touch with its Japan head, Hiroshi Alley. The company has about 400 people in Tokyo and Yokohama. “I am in touch with many of our Japanese colleagues, including Alley,” said Rajan Kohli, the chief marketing officer of Wipro Technologies. “All are our employees are safe,” he said.
“Our employees are still here. We have bought them food and are keeping the office open 24 hours until we arrange their return, as trains are down, subways are down, and the traffic is very bad,” Alley told Business Standard from his office in Japan.
TCS officials spoke to their delivery head in Japan soon after hearing about the incident. TCS’ office, a few hundred metres from Wipro’s in Yokohama, has 200-300 people. “As phone lines are dead, we are in touch with our delivery centre head and other senior people through email. Our employees are safe,” said a company spokesperson.
Mid-sized IT services company iGate, which has about 100 people in Yokohama, also said its employees were safe.
Hari Thalapalli, chief people officer and chief marketing officer of Mahindra Satyam, said the company had set up a help desk at its Tokyo office, where they have close to 100 employees. “Our associates are safe. But they are quite disturbed,” he said. Thalapalli said due to unavailability of transport, the company was making sure that either the stranded employees stayed back in office or in friends’ houses. “Hotels are not available. But things should get better in a day or so,” he said.
IT and BPO services firm Patni said the company had taken measures to ensure employees’ safety and business continuity.
Hiroshi Takashina, managing director, Nikon India, said, “I got in touch with our head office in Tokyo. We have a facility in Miyagi, one of the places affected by the quake. There is no damage to property and none of our employees have been injured.”
Maruti Suzuki has close to 100 Indian engineers in Japan. “Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava and Managing Director Shinzo Nakanishi were on their way back to India at the time of the earthquake. They are safe,” said a spokesperson.
Shashank Srivastava, chief general manager (marketing), MSIL, said, “Some of the factories are close to the coast. Till now we have not got any news of operations being affected.”
A spokesperson for Honda Siel Cars India said, “We are trying to ascertain that all our colleagues are safe in Japan. It is difficult to get in touch with them right now as the phone lines are down.”
Toyota and its affiliates have temporarily shut three plants.
In India, the main stock indices edged lower after paring some intra-day losses, reacting to the earthquake.
