The toll in the 1995 southern Hyogo prefectural earthquake had climbed to at least 2,872 dead and 14,572 injured, with those missing down to 870 as we closed last night, and after appearing to abandon hope of finding more survivors, the rescue services put in a request to Switzerland to send dogs trained to find skiers trapped under avalanches. On the industrial front, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd and Sharp Corp said they had resumed operations at their electrical plants after establishing that there was no major damage, and NEC Corp said its semiconductor plant in the area would resume operations shortly, minimising the threat of a shortage of memory chips, although work at a Mitsubishi Electric Corp chip plant was still suspended. Fujitsu Ltd’s display and peripheral plant in Akashi, near Kobe, was still closed, and the company reported that one building was leaning and said it was possible that the entire facility will have to be rebuilt. The power transmission to the plants is cut off and our first priority for the moment is to find out the whereabouts of our workers who have lost contact, a Fujitsu spokesman added. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd suspended operations at two electrical plants in Kobe city, although no significant damage to production lines and buildings had been found – We can’t resume operations until power utilities and water supplies are restored, it said. Texas Instruments Inc said its KTI Semiconductor Inc joint venture plant near Kobe suffered no damage, but the plant, in which Kobe Steel Ltd is the local partner, suspended production pending recalibration and repair of equipment and resumption of computer support, although operations are expected to resume within a week. Quantum Corp said facilities of its manufacturing partner, Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd, were unaffected and the manufacturing process has not been disrupted. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp said it had repaired most of the telephone exchanges damaged in the quake but 9,000 lines were still down.
