At first glance, business at Miwa Amauchi's precision metal-parts factory near Tokyo appears normal. A laser beam carves through metal sheets while nearby a worker, cigarette hanging from his lips, makes small adjustments to a machine press bending delicate steel components.
Upstairs in her sparse office, however, Amauchi frets about the firm's future after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 knocked out a big portion of the electricity supply to the Tokyo area, leaving millions to cope with rolling power blackouts.
"Compared to the suffering that people in disaster-hit areas are going through, what we have to bear is tiny so I don't want to complain," Amauchi, who manages sales, told Reuters. "But if this drags on for a year the company could be in trouble."
Indeed, analysts suggest power blackouts will ultimately cause the biggest economic damage to Japan, a vital player in the global manufacturing supply chain.
The Tokyo area and regions further north make up half of the economic activity for the world's third-biggest economy, Nomura Holdings estimates.
With Japan heading toward summer, when power demand tends to peak as air conditioners are used to combat rising temperatures, the power crunch could get worse.
That threatens to idle expensive machinery at the Amauchi family firm, founded 53 years ago, and leave its 26 workers with nothing to do.
The quake and tsunami left 28,000 people dead or missing. Direct damage from the twin calamity alone could be as high as $300 billion, making it the world's costliest natural disaster.
The quake and tsunami also crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, triggering radiation leaks that officials say could take months to stop.
IMPACT
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which runs the plant, lost 23 percent of its generating capacity in the disaster. Officials have conceded that most, if not all, of the six reactors at the plant will have to be decommissioned.
TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc, which supplies northern Japan and because of the disaster is experiencing a similar dearth of power supply, cannot rely on other power grids in Japan for support.
A legacy dating back to World War II means the two sides of Japan's main island operate different power frequencies, making their generators incompatible.
It would take years to build bridges between the two systems, so the government is considering allowing companies to coordinate on their plant operating hours, which may require some speedy changes to antimonopoly laws.
The Amauchi family firm is one of thousands that have to juggle rolling blackouts imposed by TEPCO to prevent a collapse of its power grid as households and businesses suck more power than the utility — Asia's largest — has to give.
The electricity deficit in Tokyo and the north could be around 10 percent, which would knock around 5 percent off recurring profits of companies listed on NOMURA's 400 index, which includes all Japan's blue chips such as Toyota Motor Corp and Sony Corp.
"If you look at it simply, this would take away 3 percentage points off industrial output over the course of a year," said Nomura strategist Ryota Sakagami.
Indeed, some analysts are predicting that economic activity as a whole in Japan will contract during the first and second quarters. The affects of the power crisis underline the subdued nature of the economy.
Half the street lights in Tokyo are turned off, offices are dimly lit and stores, while open, serve customers in semi darkness. Commuter lines are running fewer trains and escalators have been turned off.
Even the traditionally bustling Tokyo district of Ginza — normally bursting with neon lights and shoppers rushing from one store to the next — is literally a shadow of its former self.
