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Wednesday October 24, 3:27 PMCalifornia fires halt Japanese factories
Sony Electronics Inc., based in San Diego County, ground zero of the firestorm, has closed its office and small manufacturing facility since Monday, according to a spokeswoman for electronics giant Sony Corp., the parent firm. Sony Electronics is a sales company employing 2,000 workers that builds "Vaio" personal computers customised to clients' requests. "We decided on the closure as the office and the production facility, which is in the same compound, is in a hazardous area," she said. "We need to ensure the safety of employees." Kyocera Corp. has also halted most manufacturing lines of semiconductor parts at Kyocera America Inc. in San Diego since Monday. The US subsidiary employs 500 workers there. "Some workers live in areas covered by the evacuation order and are unable to come to work. A small portion of production lines are operating with those who managed to come," said Kyocera spokeswoman Chikako Morioka. "The fires have caused no damage to our factory building and manufacturing facility ... but it depends on the situation there when to resume production," she added. More than half a million people across California were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as wildfires raged for a third day, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings and threatening to overwhelm firefighters. Wind-driven infernos have so far scorched at least 166,000 hectares (412,000 acres) of tinder-dry forest and brush, making the blaze one of the worst wildfire crises in Californian history. |
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