270,000 vehicles hit by tsunami in 3 prefectures.

[AsahinaKimi]

The Yomiuri Shimbun



The March 11 tsunami damaged nearly 270,000 vehicles in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, according to an estimate by an industry body.

This equates to about 7 percent of all vehicles in those prefectures.

According to the Hokkaido chapter of the Japan Iron and Steel Recycling Institute, the tsunami triggered by Great East Japan Earthquake damaged about 125,000 vehicles in Miyagi, about 102,000 in Fukushima and about 40,000 in Iwate.

The institute derived the figures by multiplying the most recent number of cars reported registered in those prefectures by a "disaster quotient" calculated from the death toll and other figures released by the National Police Agency on March 18.
(Apr. 18, 2011)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110417002843.htm

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In every tsunami video footage, you always saw a large number of cars that were swept away.. in the back of your mind, you might have thought.. how many??

[aquart]

1. I was more interested in the ones that were lined up to ship and sell overseas.

I'm not sure how a factory deals with that.

[Sherman A1]

2. Agreed

There are stories (which may or may not be true) of flood cars being cleaned up and sold without it being noted during the sale in the post Katrina South.

I would hope there is a plan for these cars that requires their destruction and does not allow their re-sale.

[TheMightyFavog]

3. Either that or they get shipped off to developing nations.

I seem to recall seeing on the News Hour a report on how car smuggling (particualrly of old cars originally destined for the scrappers) is big business in the third world, particularly Africa.