Fire at Asahi Kasei plant in Kyushu extinguished.

Japan Weekly Monitor, March, 2002

MIYAZAKI, Japan, March 13 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH EXTINGUISHING OF FIRE)

Firefighters finally managed on Wednesday afternoon to extinguish a blaze at an Asahi Kasei Corp. nylon factory in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture, some 21 hours after it began on the first floor and nearly destroyed the five-story building, the Nobeoka fire department said.

Nobeoka firefighters said the fire, which started Tuesday at around 5:15 p.m., was put out at 2:37 p.m. City officials then lifted an evacuation advisory that had affected 9,407 residents in 3,698 households within a 1 kilometer radius of the plant.

There were no reports of injuries among the 400 workers at the factory, a 15,150-square-meter compound located about 3 km southeast of the...