The Japanese government has estimated the direct damage from a deadly earthquake and tsunami that struck the country's north-east this month at up to 25 trillion yen (€217 billion), making it the world's costliest natural disaster.
It said the estimate covered damage to roads, homes, factories and other infrastructure and eclipses the €70 billion loss after the 1995 Kobe quake, until now the highest.
The figure does not include losses in economic activity from planned power outages or the broader impact of a crisis at a stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima, where work crews are still struggling to prevent further radiation leaks.
'The impact from the planned power outages is likely to be significant,' Fumihira Nishizaki, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Cabinet Office told reporters.
The upper end of the estimate range would amount to about 6% of Japan's gross domestic product.
'This quake will cause the condition of Japan's economy and output to be severe,' Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa told a parliamentary committee.
Speaking separately, central bank board member Ryuzo Miyao repeated the bank's pledge to take appropriate policy action if needed to support the world's third-largest economy.
In its initial response to the disaster, the central bank started pumping trillions of yen into the money market to prevent it from seizing up and doubled its asset buying scheme.
While economists expect Japan's biggest reconstruction push since the post-World War Two period to give the hard-hit economy a badly needed lift in the second half of the year, they warn that power shortages are the greatest risk to such a scenario.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, which serves Tokyo and the surrounding area that accounts for 40% of Japan's economic output, lost about 20% of its operating thermal and nuclear power generation and is unlikely to get enough back online to meet peak summer demand.
Toyota, the world's top car maker, could be losing about millions of euro of profit for every day its 12 assembly plants remain shut.
