After Japan earthquake.. Toyota to resume domestic assembly lines

CAIRO, SEP 10 (SEE ) – Toyota Motor announced on Monday it would resume operations at all domestic assembly plants in Hokkaido following last week’s earthquake.

A Toyota spokeswoman said: "Partial production would resume on Tuesday at some plants including those near the company’s headquarters in Aichi Prefecture, and at subsidiary Toyota Auto Body Co operations on remaining lines would resume on Thursday."

Toyota reported last week it would halt almost all auto production in Japan because power outages left one of its factories and those of suppliers in the dark.

Toyota’s operations in Japan churn out an average of 13,000 cars a day, and the automaker is expected to have lost at least that much output through its partial shutdown.

The Hokkaido plant produces transmissions for gasoline vehicles, transaxles for hybrid gasoline cars and other components.

The earthquake hit the northernmost island of Hokkaido early Thursday, killing  44 people and leaving the entire island and more than 5 million people without power.