Sony warehouse burns in London riots

TOKYO, JAPAN: Sony Corp said on Tuesday deliveries in Britain of compact discs and DVDs could be affected after its sole warehouse for content products in the country caught fire in north London, probably due to the riots spreading in the area.

The insured three-storey, 20,000 square metre warehouse has been burning since late on Monday or early Tuesday in London's Enfield neighbourhood, the site of scattered incidents as riots spread from the Tottenham area over the fatal shooting of a man by armed police.

"There will likely be some impact on deliveries," said Yoko Yasukochi, a spokeswoman at the Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate in Tokyo.

"We cannot determine the cause of the fire or the extent of the damage yet because it's not possible to enter the building," she said. No injuries have been reported from the fire, she added.

Britain has been engulfed in the worst rioting, looting and arson for decades since Saturday, when violence first broke out in London's northern Tottenham district when a peaceful protest over the police shooting of a suspect two days earlier turned into looting.

Shares in Sony were down 2.0 per cent at 1,724 yen in late afternoon trade in Tokyo on Tuesday, faring slightly better than the Nikkei average, which was down 2.3 per cent.