Swedish companies are counting the cost of a giant earthquake.

• Japan nuke plant 'may be in meltdown'
• Hundreds dead in Japanese quake-tsunami
• Re-insurers take hit from quake in Japan

The strongest earthquake ever to hit Japan Friday unleashed a terrifying 10-metre tsunami that claimed hundreds of lives, with a nuclear plant and petrochemical complex among multiple sites set ablaze.

The monster wall of water generated by the 8.9-magnitude quake pulverised the northeastern city of Sendai, where police reportedly said that 200-300 bodies had been found on the coast.

Foreign companies Friday started counting the cost of a giant earthquake in Japan as operations were disrupted across the country, the Wall Street Journal said.

Swedish Volvo, the world number two for heavy goods vehicles, was among those worst hit as its main facility in Japan was forced to halt production. Volvo employs 10,000 people in Japan.

Autoliv, the world's biggest airbag and seatbelt maker, said production had been halted at one of its three Japanese plants.

Swedish-Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson, with some 1,100 employees at two offices in Tokyo, said it was in close contact with its Japanese suppliers.

Finland’s Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, said status of its subcontractors was so far unclear.
"The commercial impact on Nokia's business in terms of direct manufacture and component supplies is still being determined and it would be inappropriate to speculate at this time," Nokia spokesman Tomi Kuuppelomaki told Dow Jones Newswires.