TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s government alerted people of potential blackouts in the Tokyo region yesterday because power supplies were low after several coal-fired plants temporarily stopped generating electricity following last week’s earthquake.

The rare alert, calling on households and companies to conserve power, comes as the Tokyo region is facing snow and unusually cold weather for early spring, prompting the use of heaters.

The 7.4-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Fukushima last Wednesday killed four people and injured more than 230 others, while reminding people of the deadly March 2011 quake and tsunami that killed thousands, triggered a nuclear disaster and devastated northeastern Japan’s coast.

Last week’s quake caused temporary power outages, peaking at two million homes in Tokyo and eight other areas, as the coal-fired plants in the region serviced by the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings assessed and repaired damage.

Power has been restored since, but the grid was being severely strained by the unusual snow and cold, officials said.

By midafternoon, the conservation effort was not enough to avoid blackouts, Economy and Industry Minister Koichi Hagiuda said.

Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport has partially turned off lights and air conditioning at terminals. Amusement parks and some companies in the region also switched to their backup generators to help in the conservation efforts.

Yesterday marked the end of Japan’s COVID-19 restrictions nationwide as infections showed signs of slowing, and restaurants were to return to normal service hours, but guests might have to eat in dim lights.

Without further power conservation, blackouts in large areas would be inevitable, Hagiuda warned, and asked department stores, supermarkets and convenience stores to turn off neon signs and urged manufacturing factories to also conserve power as much as they can.

Charlene Pele

PARABIAGO, ITALY (AP) – A small bakery in northern Italy is trying to do its part to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.

Baker Matteo Cunsolo is making and selling “peace bread” in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag, with proceeds going to a charitable fund helping refugees who cross into Italy or who are remaining in Ukraine.

In addition, Cunsolo and area bakers have made 600 kilogrammes of cookies to give out to young refugees. He plans to bring the sweets, along with a truck full of locally donated diapers, food, medicine and clothes, to the Ukrainian-Polish border soon.

“After running away from the bombs, perhaps travelling across forests by night in the cold, I think a cookie is like a little cuddle that can help bring a smile on a child’s face,” he said, standing in front of his industrial-sized oven at La Panetteria in Parabiago, near Milan.

Cunsolo said he got the idea to bake after watching a TV report about the reception Ukrainians were receiving at the Polish border: They were given something warm to drink and a piece of bread.

“When I heard the word bread I thought – ‘OK I am a baker, what can I do to help?’”

He uses natural food colouring to make the bread: saffron to colour the dough yellow, and an infusion made from the leaves of the blue butterfly pea flower, or clitoria ternatea, to get the blue. Once baked, he uses a butter-based spray and a “PEACE” stencil to decorate each loaf.

“It’s a really important initiative,” said customer Maria Pascolin as she shopped at the bakery.

“It’s a drop in the ocean, but if we all gave a contribution, it would help.”

WARSAW, POLAND (AP) – Peter Paul Rubens’ 17th Century masterpiece Portrait of a Lady has sold for the equivalent of USD3.4 million at a Warsaw auction, becoming the most expensive artwork ever bought on the Polish art market, the auction house said.

The painting sold for PLN14.4 million, auction fee included, at an Old Masters auction last Thursday night at the Desa Unicum.

It was the first painting by Rubens ever to appear on the Polish market.

It was put on sale by a British citizen.

Prior to the auction, the value of the Flemish master’s oil-on-canvas portrait of a dark-haired woman in a rich black velvet dress had been estimated at between PLN18 million and PLN24 million (USD4.5 million-USD6 million).

Experts said the work, painted by Rubens around 1620-25, with involvement from his Antwerp workshop, could be a likeness of the painter’s first wife, Isabella Brant, or of a member of the Duarte family of jewellers, who were Rubens’ neighbours. The model could also possibly have come from the Spanish royal court.

In the past the painting has belonged, among others, to 17th-Century British painter Sir Peter Lely. It was last shown in public in 1965.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) – Health officials in South Korea have instructed crematories to burn more bodies per day and funeral homes to add more refrigerators to store the dead as families struggle with funeral arrangements amid a rise in COVID-19 deaths.

The country has been dealing with a massive coronavirus outbreak driven by the fast-moving Omicron variant, which has compromised a once robust pandemic response and is driving up hospitalisations and fatalities.

Officials have already allowed the 60 crematories across country to burn for longer hours starting last week, which raised their combined capacity from around 1,000 to 1,400 cremations per day.

But that hasn’t been enough to meaningfully ease the backlog of bodies waiting to be cremated in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which is home to half of South Korea’s 52 million people and the centre of its COVID-19 outbreak.

The backlog has also trickled down to funeral homes at hospitals and other facilities, where families have struggled to make funeral arrangements because of the longer wait for cremations.

Senior Health Ministry official Son Youngrae said during a briefing that officials will instruct regional crematories to increase furnace operations from five times to seven times a day, which would match the levels at crematories in the greater capital area.

Crematories will also be asked to receive reservations from outside their regions – something many facilities don’t typically do – to reduce the backlog in the Seoul region, Son said.