With a few rare exceptions we in Tokyo are all fine - I walked home from the office Friday after the initial quake (see video of the office here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bCXiuerqg . Never seen so many thousands of people WALKING in Tokyo.
Several of the Tokyo office team slept over at my house Friday. Tohoku (300 km northeast of Tokyo) is a total disaster. The earthquake itself was bad enough, but the awesome power and total obliterating destruction of the tsunami is just too much for words to describe.
Psychologically many of us in Tokyo are far more stressed about the nuclear power plant issues, although for the moment is may (or more likely may not) be under control. And at least for the next 24 to 36 hours the wind is blowing northerly away from us.
Today (Monday the 14th) most of us were in the office for half a day then we sent everyone home. Pretty much the rest of the week we will be working remotely from our homes or elsewhere.
TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power utility) has announced a plan to begin rolling blackouts around the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. Most supermarkets and convenience stores have frighteningly bare shelves – TOTALLY sold out of milk, eggs, fresh vegetables, toilet paper, etc. This afternoon we found most gasoline service stations had long lines of cars waiting to fuel up. One near my home had at a queue of least 40 cars, and at another we were able to handily scoot into ahead of others we were told that all service stations are now strictly limiting purchases to a maximum 20 liters.
2011/03/14 19:12 - Tokyo Electric Embarks On Power Outages, To Last By April
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http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL3E7EE18820110314
Numerous multinational companies are sending their key expat executives out of Japan temporarily. Some are moving to Osaka or Kyoto for a while. Others have elected to send the families out and keep the executive here. Over the weekend a good friend who heads up the Japan subsidiary of a major multinational software company flew his wife, daughter, and himself to their house in Honolulu. His intention was to turn right around and fly back to Tokyo alone. However his head office and his wife (one & the same??) convinced him he could be just as effective working remotely – so he is now temporarily based out of Hawaii. His number two in command returned form a European business trip yesterday morning, and he called me this evening from his car to say he is on the way with his wife to catch a flight to Singapore. Seems he will work out their Asia office until the nuclear issue is settled in Japan.
Another senior American executive of a huge retail operation in Japan told me he just out his wife and kids on a plane for the US, but he will stay in Tokyo to run the business. This afternoon I had a long phone conversation with a European executive who is president of a famous luxury goods importer and retailer. He said he would personally like to get out of Tokyo but he cannot imagine walking out on his Japanese team – it would be like the captain leaving a sinking ship before the crew could escape. He may send his family to Kyoto or another western Japan city while he stays in Tokyo.
If you were a Western businessman based in Tokyo what would YOU do?
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