Tokyo: Cars lie scattered at a port, a nearby oil plant spews clouds of smoke and shattered factories burn in northeastern Japan signs of the dire hit the nation's economy is taking from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that has killed thousands.
The 8.9-magnitude tremor that struck on Friday triggered a wall of muddy waves that swallowed whole towns.
Nuclear power stations were disabled and two reactors at one plant are threatening meltdown. An official says at least
10,000 people are dead in one coastal state alone.
The destruction may be reflected in the Tokyo stock market on Monday, with some analysts predicting it will nosedive when trading starts. The Bank of Japan said it's ready to take action to support the economy and ensure there's enough cash in the financial system to keep it operating normally.
Japan's economy, which lost its place as world's No. 2 to China last year, was already in a fragile state. It has been ailing for 20 years, barely managing to eke out weak growth in-between slowdowns, saddled by a massive public debt, at 200 percent of gross domestic product and growing.
Koetsu Aizawa, economics professor at Saitama University, says tens of billions of dollars will be needed to rebuild homes, roads and other infrastructure requiring public spending that will add to the national debt.
"In the short term, the market will almost surely suffer and stocks will plunge. People might see an already weakened Japan, overshadowed by a growing China, getting dealt the finishing blow from this quake," he said.
Japan, however, has endured and recovered from other major disasters.
The 1995 earthquake in Kobe cost $ 132 billion and was the world's most expensive natural disaster, according to Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.
Still, Smith believes damage to Japan's economy from Friday's quake and tsunami will be massive.
"The long-term economic blow to a country already struggling to lower its budget deficit ... will be significant," she said.
The hard-hit northeast of Japan is a major center for car production, complete with a myriad of parts suppliers and a network of roads and ports for efficient shipments.
The quake the biggest in modern Japanese history left all that in shambles.
"There is no way to get our products out, even if we make them, with the roads and distribution system damaged," said Honda Motor Co spokeswoman Natsuno Asanuma.
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