UPDATE 1-No sign of China quake damage at foreign car plants
(Adds response from other automakers)
SHANGHAI/TOKYO, May 12 (Reuters) - Foreign car makers said their China operations were not damaged by a strong earthquake in southwestern China on Monday, although Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Volkswagen AG (VOWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) said they had no word on two small joint venture facilities in the region.
An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 in Sichuan Province killed five children and injured more than 100 people, while causing buildings to sway as far away as Shanghai and the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T: Quote, Profile, Research), which operates a car factory in Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chongqing, said the earthquake had no impact on its operations.
Staff at a Ford Motor (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) facility in Chongqing were briefly evacuated out of safety concerns but returned to work minutes later, China-based company spokesman Kenneth Hsu said.
“When the earthquake first hit, our staff were ordered to evacuate the plant for roughly 10 minutes, but they have returned to work now,” he said.
Toyota Motor and Volkswagen, which make vehicles in separate tie-ups with China’s FAW Group in Sichuan province, said they were not immediately clear on the situation at their facilities.
“We are still trying to get in touch with our China plants. I don’t have any information yet,” a Toyota spokeswoman in China said.
Neither of the plants is a major production facility for the firms.
General Motors GM.M, Nissan Motor (7201.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Honda Motor (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said their operations in China were not affected by the quake. (Reporting by Fang Yan in Shanghai, Nobuhiro Kubo and Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
Tags: earthquake, sichuan
:(I want a refund!
I’m in Beijing and I felt the building start shaking. At first I thought I was having some sort of weird dizzy spell, and then my friend said she was too, so we kinda figured it out.Just a coupla minutes of gentle shaking of the building. Still kinda freaky, given the quality of construction here ….
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7395496.st …An earthquake measuring 7.5 has hit south-west China, according to the US Geological Survey.Reports said tremors could be felt as far afield as the Thai capital, Bangkok, and Hanoi in Vietnam.The quake struck 57 miles (92km) north-west of Sichuan’s provincial capital, Chengdu, at 1428 (0628 GMT), the survey said on its website.Earthquakes are common in China - in March a 7.2-magnitude quake struck in the western Xinjiang province.On Monday, workers in Beijing - about 930 miles from Chengdu - said buildings were swaying for about two minutes.In Beijing’s financial district, workers poured from their buildings - but there were no visible signs of damage.Workers in Chengdu also fled their buildings.”We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes. All the people in our office are rushing downstairs,” an office worker in Chengdu told Reuters.The Chinese authorities say they are still investigating the exact location and strength of the quake - which was initially reported to be 7.8 magnitude by the US survey.
xevious’s link is to the realtime posts from people around the world relating to “earthquake” which is covering this well — the same area was hit by a 4.1 just over a month ago. On google maps: http://snurl.com/28flg
::Cough:: Nuclear testing.
A lot of earthquakes happening recently, or at least the media’s coverage has gone up. Something to do with homosexuals, I warrant.
I was going to say the same thing (about earthquakes happening a lot that is). Perhaps you hear more about them on the internet where news are less centralized.
i’m on north third ring in beijing and i didn’t feel anything. apparently it only affected central beijing.
The world should ignore China’s please for help, they should not make any effort to help them after China tried to actively stop the world bringing aid to the Burmese cyclone victims.This along with denying Taiwan independence and committing millions of murders in Tibet… they deserve this earthquake.
I was on the second floor, at work. the worst we felt was a momentary loss of balance. My wife was at home, on the 11th floor: the entire building rocked momentarily and spooked her rather badly.Aftershocks are expected to hit Beijing from 10 pm to midnight. The strength of the shocks are expected to be from 2 to 6 on the Richter Scale.
7.8
It is, the Richter scale is logarithmic, remember? I’ve experienced a earthquake of 6 once, and that was quite scary. 7.8 would be almost a 100 times worse, and that is huge.
tibet?
I was surprised this headline didn’t have “BREAKING” before it.