Earthquake strands thousands of employees at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters

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At Sony Corp.’s Tokyo headquarters, 3,000 employees remained overnight Friday in the company’s buildings unable to return home as of early Saturday morning in Japan, the company said. It also housed hundreds of refugees from the surrounding Shinagawa district in its second-floor meeting room.

As the city’s train system recovers, Sony said more employees are expected to be able to go home.

Meanwhile, the company halted operations at six of its factories in the Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures north of Tokyo. Sony said employees of the factories, which make Blu-ray discs, semiconductors and batteries, were safely evacuated.

The company, however, was unable to assess the damage to its facilities.

Three Panasonic facilities sustained what appeared to be minor damage as windows shattered and ceiling tiles crashed down in a company cafeteria, causing minor injuries to two workers. The company said it was still assessing the extent of the damage to its operations there.

As of Monday morning in Japan, many consumer electronics companies, including Sharp, Sony and Nikon, kept their facilities in the area offline in order to further assess damage or to conserve energy amid the widespread power outage.

Twice magazine, a trade publication, has a detailed report here.

-- Alex Pham

This post was updated Monday, March 14, at 12:27 pm.