Japan Quakes Force Evacuation Near Reactor; Oil Refinery Burns

Residents near a Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear reactor were ordered to evacuate because of a possible radiation leak as Japan’s strongest earthquake in a century shut power plants and oil refineries.

About 1,800 residents living within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 1 reactor were ordered to evacuate, said Ryohei Shiomi, spokesman at the Emergency Information Center of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Residents within 10 kilometers were told to stay indoors.

Firefighters continued to battle a blaze at Cosmo Oil Co.’s refinery, 40 kilometers east of Tokyo, said Seiichi Aso, a spokesman at the local fire department. The blaze started at the 220,000 barrel-a-day plant’s storage tanks, Cosmo Oil spokesman Yusuke Kaneda said. JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. said it shut its refineries in Sendai, Kashima, and Negishi.

Millions of homes were without electricity as utilities shut 11 nuclear power reactors. The shutdowns amount to about 20 percent of Japan’s 4.6 million barrels a day refining capacity and about 20 percent, or 12 gigawatts, of Japan’s total installed nuclear capacity, Sanford C. Bernstein analysts including Neil Beveridge said in a note today.

Reactors operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia’s biggest utility, Tohoku Electric Power Co. and Japan Atomic Power Co. were shut, the trade ministry said in an e-mailed statement. A fire broke out at a turbine building at Tohoku Electric’s Onagawa reactor, company spokesman Kazuya Sugawara said, adding that there’s no risk of a radiation leak.