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2011 Sendai Earthquake And Tsunami, Tōhoku Region, Pacific Ocean
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According to Tohoku Electric, around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity. Several nuclear and conventional power plants went offline after the earthquake. Rolling blackouts will begin on 14 March 2011 due to power shortages caused by the earthquake. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which normally provides approximately 40 GW of electricity, announced that it can only currently provide about 30 GW. This is due to 40 percent of the electricity used in the greater Tokyo area normally being supplied by reactors in the Niigata and Fukushima prefectures. Two of those reactors, the Fukushima Dai-ichi and Fukushima Dai-ni, were automatically taken offline when the first earthquake occurred and have sustained major damage related to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Rolling blackouts of three hours are expected to last until the end of April and will affect the Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Chiba, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tochigi, and Gunma prefectures.
Oil
An oil refinery of Cosmo Oil Company was set on fire by the quake at Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, to the east of Tokyo. Major fires broke out elsewhere, such as in the city of Kesennuma.
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