The Asahi Glass Co (AGC) Group has reported the effects of the strong earthquakes and tsunamis that hit the northern part of Japan on 11th March 2011 on its operations across the country.
Four plants in Kashima, Chiba, Yonezawa and Koriyama were affected by the natural disaster. Aside from these locations, production has also been suspended at some of the group’s architectural processed glass plants in the Tohoku/North Kanto region due to damage to facilities or raw materials or to employees being unable to go to the plant. It is not yet clear when operations will resume.
A company announcement made on 14th March confirmed the status of AGC’s Japan operations. Regarding employees, it says it is currently in the process of confirming the safety of its group members. It has been reported that several employees have been slightly injured.
Of the four affected facilities, the announcement states, the Kashima plant has been partially damaged. Production and operations were suspended and it was expected to take approximately one month to restart production.
In the meantime, AGC will allocate existing inventories and shipments from other group plants in and outside the company and ‘make the utmost effort to prevent a supply shortage of architectural glass’.
Access to the Chiba plant was restricted due to the ongoing fire at neighbouring Cosmo Oil Company, therefore AGC is currently working on the confirmation of the status of the plant facilities.
The Yonezawa display glass plant was not critically damaged and production has resumed, the company confirms. However, among the plant’s outsourcers that handle part of its processing operations, urgent restoration work is underway on severely damaged building facilities.
Finally, the Koriyama plant was partially damaged and restoration work was underway at the time of the announcement.
