At this 19-year-old Toyota factory in Kanegasaki, 500 km (300 miles) north of Tokyo, one shiny Aqua hybrid car rolls off the assembly line every 75 seconds, 17 hours a day.
With 120,000 orders to fill from just the first month of sales since late December -- equivalent to 10 months' worth of targeted sales in Japan -- the frantic pace will only quicken in the coming months.
Toyota Motor Corp's long-held plan of setting up a manufacturing base in Japan's northeast coincides with the region's efforts to rebuild itself up after being ravaged by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis last March. (Reuters)
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