Deepening economic damage in tsunami-wracked Japan is threatening to derail the world's third-largest economy, adding yet another source of instability to a global economy that's already grappling with troubles in the Middle East and higher prices for oil and food.

Bad news proliferated in Japan and across Asia on Tuesday, as officials struggled to contain damage at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that has suffered problems in four of its six reactors since Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami. Although officials appeared to have regained some control by late in the day, panic had already spread to regional markets, leaving many economists and companies less certain Japan would recover from the disaster as quickly as they had hoped.

Japanese auto makers and other factories extended closures for several more days at least, potentially imperiling deliveries of everything from Prius hybrid cars to the flash chips that go into iPhones and iPads. Taiwan's EVA Airways said it will cancel 56 flights between Japan and Taiwan, including some through the end of June─and saw its share price nosedive 6.9%.

Tens of thousands of tourists have canceled trips to and from Japan, while regional rubber-industry leaders called a special meeting likely to be held later this week to try to arrest a sharp drop in rubber prices amid expectations of weaker demand in Japan.

Markets fell across Asia, led by an 11% drop of Tokyo shares following a 6.2% fall Monday, the worst performance of the Nikkei since its Oct. 16, 2008, drop of 11.4% during the global financial crisis. Some $364 billion of investor wealth, or 9.4% of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's market capitalization, was wiped out, with begin declines in shares of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, which dropped 25%, and Toshiba Corp., which fell 20%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 2.9%, and stocks also fell in China, Australia, Taiwan and South Korea, among others.

Economists stressed that if Japanese officials are able to bring its nuclear problems under control, it should help the country move more quickly into full recovery mode, lifting some of the worries. Growth overall is still expected to be strong in Asia this year, though a number of analysts have said in recent days they may have to ratchet down their forecasts as headwinds multiply.

Either way, analysts were already growing more worried about the global economy, which has moved forward in recent months mainly on momentum from Asia's booming economies, many of which are deeply reliant on Japanese trade and investment. Rising prices for food and oil and rising tensions in the Middle East have driven much of the worry.

Tuesday's problems at Japan's nuclear facilities have only added to the uncertainty. The normal pattern for countries that suffer disasters is for their economies to undergo temporary slowdowns, as production seizes up, followed by a rebound a few months later once reconstruction spending takes hold. Economists in recent days had been saying they expected Japan to post weaker growth and possibly a contraction in the next one to two quarters but then recover quickly at the end of the year, but now that may be changing.

'What [people] are worried about is the potential from the nuclear power plant, and that can have very different implications,' said Changyong Rhee, the chief economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, though he said he still thought Asian companies had enough flexibility to adjust to most issues japan could face.

Part of the problem is that the full scale of the damage─and most importantly, how long auto plants and other key production centers will be offline ─is still unknown.

Even though serious damage was limited to a few areas, Japan's problems are nationwide because supplier logistics have been severely dislocated by restrictions on using highways for freight, as well as unpredictable power cuts that make operations planning extremely difficult. Meanwhile, the shadow of the ongoing nuclear crisis is making many companies reluctant to ask staff to report for work until the situation clears.

Underscoring the nationwide reach of the problem, Mazda Motor Corp. on Tuesday said it's suspending all domestic plant operations until March 20, even though it's based in Hiroshima, with most of its plant in the west of the country.

Honda Motor Co. has also closed plants in Japan until Sunday while Nissan Motor Co. has four plants shut until Wednesday and another two until Friday. Toyota Motor Co., the world's biggest auto maker by sales, has so far only confirmed closures from Monday of this week through Wednesday, putting the level of vehicle production lost at 40,000. But if it falls in line with peers, and suspends production for the rest of the week, it could lose roughly 60,000 vehicles out of regular monthly production of about 250,000 vehicles.

One of the biggest headaches for plant managers─the rolling power cuts ─may last through the end of April, according to utility company Tepco.

Some economists and companies continued to see silver linings in the disaster, however tragic it was. Executives at India's Essar Steel Ltd. and state-run Steel Authority of India Ltd. said Tuesday they expect exports of finished steel to Japan to climb in the coming months as the country rebuilds and owners of wooden buildings along Japan's coastline replace them with sturdier structures. Thailand's Thai Union Frozen Products PCL, the world's biggest canned-tuna producer by sales, said Tuesday it expects increased sales to Japan as the country looks for alternative food sources following damage to areas with seafood processing.

In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Bank of Thailand Gov. Prasarn Trairatvorakul said he didn't think Thailand would suffer any significant impact from Japan's disaster and might even benefit long-term, as Japanese companies push to further diversify their manufacturing bases overseas.

But many other companies are experiencing serious pain. Consider Eita Electric, a Malaysian company that supplies circuit breakers and other products for high-rise buildings, with many of the components manufactured at two factories in Japan. Two consignments valued at $200,000 are held up indefinitely because of transportation holdups and problems at Japan's Yokohama port, said Y . T. Chong, the company's managing director. Future orders will also likely be affected, he said, because production at the factories has stopped due to power shortages.

'My business will be badly affected,' he said. 'I cannot source this from any other country because these items are sold under a well-known Japanese brand, and therefore it has to come from Japan. There is nothing much we can do.'

Tetsuya Wakuda, a Japanese-Australian celebrity chef with restaurants in Sydney and Singapore, including one at Singapore's glitzy Marina Bay Sands entertainment complex, said the disaster has disrupted many of his suppliers and that some high-grade seafood typically sourced from Japan will likely need to be acquired from Australia and New Zealand.

'It's devastating for all our suppliers because a lot of Japanese seafood comes from the eastern coast, which is all destroyed,' Mr Wakuda said. 'This is not going to come back for weeks, months or even a year,' with waters off the Sanriku coast, which is famous for its abalone and sea urchin, unfit for fishing at present.

The Japanese disaster is bound to make corporate executives world-wide rethink their contingency planning and their vulnerability to shocks from overseas. That has a certain poignancy given that Japanese car makers pioneered the concept of 'just-in-time' manufacturing, in which plants stock a minimum of inventory and rely on global transportation and communications to deliver what is necessary on a tight schedule. Now those car makers, and others that copied the Japanese methods, must cope with lost production from the Japanese plants.

In China, auto plants typically have a week of imported Japanese parts on hand and another two to three weeks worth of parts on ships heading toward Chinese ports. If Japan can gets its auto factories back into production quickly, any disruption should be minimal, especially since the Japanese car makers may be able to make up lost production by running more shifts.

But a longer shutdown is bound to have deeper consequences. In the auto industry, Japanese manufacturers rely on their home factories to produce hybrid cars and batteries, electronic control systems and high-end automobile entertainment systems, says Bill Russo, president of Synergistics Ltd., a Beijing auto consulting firm. Some of those components are sold to auto competitors too.

Contingency plans rarely provide back-up for every part a company makes or needs, he said. Instead, the company figures out how to make do with lost production─for instance, building cars without the fanciest entertainment systems included, or building fewer hybrids than planned.

In China, the International Business Daily, the Commerce Ministry's paper, reported that Chinese firms would have to delay the launch of new products because they may not be able to import needed electronic components from Japan.

The disaster is also likely to give a further push to China's already aggressive plans to increase the sopistication of the products it can make domestically, so it's less reliant on foreign firms.

Liu Xiaojun, a manager with Shanghai Lunsure Technology, an electronics assembly company, said his firm buys components solely from Chinese firms because they are less expensive than imports and because Chinese quality is improving. He noted that the Chinese government has been urging electronics firms to produce higher-end parts, including silicon chips, domestically.

海啸袭击后，日本经济损失不断加深，恐致世界第三大经济体脱轨，给已经面临中东乱局与石油、食品价格上涨的全球经济再增加一个不稳定因素。

相关报导经济学家强调，如果日本官员能够控制住核危机，那么日本便能更快地进入全面复苏的轨道，也能解除外界的一些忧虑。今年亚洲整体经济增长仍有望强劲，但近日来也有一些分析师说由于形势迅速恶化，他们可能不得不调低预期。

无论出现哪种情况，分析师们已经越来越担忧全球经济。最近几个月，受亚洲地区蓬勃发展的经济体推动，全球经济向前发展。但许多亚洲经济体严重依赖对日贸易和来自日本的投资。油价粮价双双高企和中东地区不断加剧的紧张局势又加重了担忧。

周二日本核电站出现的问题只是增加了不确定性。受灾国家通常的发展模式是：由于生产停滞，经济会经历一段短暂的下滑。几个月后，一旦灾后重建大量支出，复苏也将跟进。近日来，经济学家一直在说他们预计未来一到两个季度日本增长将放缓，甚至会出现收缩，但到年底会快速复苏。但现在这种预期可能会发生变化。

亚洲开发银行(Asian Development Bank)的首席经济学家李昌镛(Changyong Rhee)说，人们担心的是日本核电站事故有可能造成的影响，这些影响会以各种非常不同的形式体现出来。不过李昌镛也说，他依然认为亚洲企业的灵活性足以使它们针对日本可能面临的大多数问题作出相应调整。

目前面临的问题之一是，日本此次灾难的损害规模依然不清楚，最为重要的是，不知道日本汽车工厂和其他重要生产中心的关闭时间会有多长。

虽然此次灾害只对日本为数不多的地区造成了严重破坏，但灾害带来的问题却是全国性的，因为政府对货运汽车使用高速公路实施的限制导致供应商的物流工作受到严重影响，而不可预测的断电因素又使制定运营规划变得十分困难。

马自达汽车公司(Mazda Motor Corp.)周二说，3月20日之前该公司在日本的所有工厂都将暂停运营，尽管这家公司的总部位于广岛，它在日本的大部分工厂都位于该国西部。这件事彰显了日本此次灾害的全国性影响。

本田汽车公司(Honda Motor Co.)也将把它在日本的工厂关闭到周日，而日产汽车公司(Nissan Motor Co.)的四座工厂将关闭到周三，另两座工厂将关闭到周五。世界销量最大的汽车生产商丰田汽车公司(Toyota Motor Co.)目前只证实它在日本的工厂会从本周一关闭到周三，该公司的汽车产量将因此减少四万辆。但如果丰田汽车也步同行的后尘，本周剩余时间继续停止在日本的生产，那么其产量有可能减少六万辆左右，该公司正常情况下在日本的汽车月产量约为25万辆。

据东京电力公司(Tepco)说，该公司服务区轮流停电的局面有可能要延续到四月底。这种轮流停电是最令汽车厂管理层头疼的事情之一。

日本此次遭受的灾难虽然是一场悲剧，但一些经济学家和企业却继续在从这一灾难中看到商机。印度钢铁公司Essar Steel Ltd.和该国的国有企业印度钢铁管理局有限公司(Steel Authority of India Ltd.)的管理人士周二说，他们预计对日本的钢铁制品出口未来几个月将会攀升，因为日本需要重建，而该国沿海地区木制住房的屋主也需要将房屋改建成更结实的结构。世界销量最大的金枪鱼罐头生产商──泰国的泰国联合冷冻产品公司(Thai Union Frozen Products PCL)周二说，它预计对日销售额将会增加，因为在日本海产品加工地区受到地震破坏后，这个国家需要寻找替代性食品来源。

泰国央行(Bank of Thailand)行长Prasarn Trairatvorakul在接受道琼斯通讯社(Dow Jones Newswires)采访时说，他不认为日本遭受的灾难会对泰国产生任何重大影响，长期而言泰国甚至能从这一灾害中获益，因为灾难会促使日本公司进一步实现海外制造业基地的多元化。

但也有许多公司因日本此次灾害而经历着严重痛苦。提供断路器和其他高层建筑所需产品的马来西亚公司Eita Electric就是这样一家企业，因为该公司所需许多零部件是在日本的两家工厂生产的。公司董事总经理Y . T. Chong说，由于运输停顿以及日本横滨港出现的问题，该公司两批价值20万美元的货物被无限期积压在日本无法运出。他说，由于在日本的工厂因电力短缺已经停产，因此公司未来的订单也有可能受到影响。

他说，我们的业务会受到严重影响。我们无法从其他国家买到这些元器件，因为这是日本一个知名品牌，所以必须从日本买。我们对此无能为力。

日裔澳大利亚名厨和久田哲也(Tetsuya Wakuda)说，日本的灾难使他的很多供应商中断供货，一些此前通常从日本购买的优质海鲜很可能需要从澳大利亚和新西兰购买。他在悉尼和新加坡都有餐馆，有一家位于新加坡繁华的滨海湾金沙酒店(Marina Bay Sands)。

和久田哲也说，这对我们所有的供应商都是灾难性的打击，因为很多日本海鲜产自东海岸，而现在东海岸全部被毁了。数周、数月甚至一年都无法恢复，因为三陆(Sanriku)附近水域目前不适合捕鱼。三陆以产鲍鱼和海胆闻名。

日本的灾难势必令全球各公司高管重新考虑应急方案和易遭海外冲击的可能性。这有一点辛酸意味，因为正是日本汽车生产商开创了准时化生产(JIT)的概念。在准时化生产中，工厂实行最小库存，依靠全球运输和通信在排得紧紧的时间表下发送必要的部件。如今，这些汽车厂商及其他效仿日本方法的公司必须克服日本工厂减产的问题。

在中国，汽车厂通常储备能够满足一周生产的日本进口部件，另有够两三周生产所用的部件在运往中国的途中。如果日本能够很快恢复汽车厂的生产，任何供应中断应该都是短暂的，特别是因为日本汽车厂商也许能够通过增加班次弥补生产缺口。

不过，更长时间的停产势必会产生更深远的后果。北京汽车咨询公司Synergistics Ltd.总裁罗索(Bill Russo)说，在汽车业，日本制造商依靠本国工厂来生产混合动力汽车、电池、电子控制系统和高端汽车娱乐系统。一些部件也卖给其他竞争汽车厂商。

他说，应急方案很少为公司所生产或需要的各个部件提供备用品。相反，公司会找到在生产受影响的情况下维持运转的方法，比如，生产没有最豪华娱乐系统的汽车，或是比计划生产更少的混合动力汽车。

在中国，商务部主办的《国际商报》报导说，中国企业将不得不推迟新产品的发布，因为他们可能无法从日本进口所需的电子元器件。

日本的灾难还可能进一步推动中国已经很宏大的提高本土产品层次、以减少对外国企业依赖的计划。

电子组装公司上海朗硕科技(Shanghai Lunsure Technology)经理刘小军（音）说，该公司只从中国公司买元器件，因为比进口的便宜，还因为中国产品的质量在不断提高。他指出，中国政府一直在敦促电子厂商在国内生产高端部件，包括硅芯片。