At Honda’s R&D center in Tochigi prefecture, one person died and 30 were injured when the quake toppled a wall at the facility’s cafeteria. No other injuries were reported. Honda shut down two assembly plants immediately after the tremor, Keitaro Yamamoto, a spokesman for Honda said, but one of them, the automaker’s Suzuka plant in central Japan soon resumed production.
But the company’s Sayama plant, north of Tokyo and closer to the quake’s epicenter, remained closed late Friday evening. Yamamoto said the company was unsure when production would resume there and added that Honda headquarters was having difficulty contacting its plants.
