Saturday's earthquake rocked Niigata Prefecture, one of the largest industrial areas some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Tokyo.

The earthquake, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, has left 27 dead and 2,500 injured with three still missing. It came on the heels of a record 10 typhoons which hit Japan, causing deaths and extensive damage.

Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki on Monday said it would take two to three months before the government could work out an estimate of the total damage from the series of disasters and draw up aid plans for reconstruction.

Economists said the direct negative impact of the quake on Japan's total output would be limited but the psychological effect could dampen consumer sentiment for a prolonged period and so harm the economy overall.

Consumer electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial said output of Panasonic-branded multi-purpose fax-and-copy machines was halted at a subsidiary in Ojiya, which was hit hardest by the quake.

"We confirmed our employees' safety but the factory halted production," said Matsushita spokesman Munetsugu Takeda, adding it was unclear when the plant would resume operations.

The company did not say how much output had been affected.

Sanyo Electric said production at Ojiya, one of its three chip-making factories in Japan, had been halted and it had not yet decided whether it would boost output at other plants in other regions to make up the shortfall.

Among the worst affected was Nippon Seiki, the country's top maker of speedometers for motorcycles which ships instrument panels to Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki.

One of Nippon Seiki's two plants was badly hit with water pipes ruptured, equipment knocked over and electricity cut off although its other factory was brought back online Tuesday, a company official said.

"Today we managed to restart production of instruments for cars," Ryuichi Tamai at Nippon Seiki's planning and management division told AFP.

"As for motorcycle instruments, we are moving production to another site over the next few days."

Annual production of some 1.9 million instrument panels, about 30 percent of the company's global output of such devices, is concentrated in the prefecture and had been halted since Saturday.

"We are doing our best so that there will not be any delays to our clients," said Tamai.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd, the third-largest carmaker in Japan, said it had enough instrument panels in inventory to continue motorcycle and car production until Tuesday.

"Production is normal up to today. After that, we are checking on the situation," said Honda spokeswoman Makiko Yoshida.

Motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. said it had sent a team to Nippon Seiki, on which it relies for 80 percent of its instrument panels, to check on the situation, said spokesman Tetsuo Osumi.

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