Nissan’s Iwaki engine plant is back on line, as this video from Nissan’s in-house channel attests. The plant, located some 35 miles away from the stricken Fukushima power plant, was severely damaged by the quake and had been off-line ever since March 11.
In the face of rumors that the plant would be abandoned, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn had toured Iwaki end of March and “vowed to use every possible means to rebuild it,” The Nikkei [sub] reported. Yesterday, Nissan made good on that promise.
Iwaki itself is the largest manufacturing city in the Tohoku region, and the Nissan plant is one of its corner stones. In an internal staff meeting on April 1, Ghosn had said: “By restoring Nissan, we can restore the community, and by restoring the community, we will help to restore Nissan.”
The Iwaki plant is one of two Nissan engine plants in Japan. It makes about 376,000 engines annually. It is strategically important for Nissan’s V-6 engines. Full production will resume in June.
“By restoring Nissan, we can restore the community, and by restoring the community, we will help to restore Nissan.”
That kind of leadership or empathy seems to be in short supply in most multinationals.
“35 miles away from the stricken Fukushima power plant”??
Doesn’t seem very far to me…barely outside the evacuation zone? (which in itself, was thought far too small by several experts) With a dangerous and unresolved nuclear crisis still unfolding? If workers are, in fact, returning…it speaks to the legendary Japansese sense of work ethic and allegiance to duty…or to my thought, insane obligation to obeying authority.
Engines now, cancer later?
Or it speaks to the radiation hysteria – but is being drowned out by the noise. If they let Carlos Ghosn speak there without a leadlined suit, it can’t be that bad.