Tokyo, 22 Mar The Japanese authorities have issued an alert about the possibility of electricity outages in Tokyo and its surrounding regions on Tuesday due to the shortage of supply following the strong earthquake that struck the region last week and urged citizens to save electricity. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has recommended saving energy between 08:00 and 23:00 local time today (23.00 GMT on Monday and 14:00 on Tuesday) for households and businesses in Tokyo and the eight prefectures served by the electric company TEPCO (Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamanashi and Shizuoka). The warning comes after TEPCO, which in total serves a population of about 42.5 million people, warned on the eve of possible supply shortages due to cold - most heating systems in Japan are electric - and the suspension of operations at some of its thermal plants due to the earthquake. Last Wednesday, an earthquake of 7.4 degrees on the open Richter scale hit the eastern slope of the archipelago hard, causing breakdowns and damage to various infrastructures. The ministry has warned that this could be the worst electricity supply situation in the region since 2011, when a 9-degree earthquake hit the northeast of the country, causing a tsunami that left 28,000 dead and missing and resulted in an accident at the Fukushima power plant that left TEPCO generation to a minimum. TEPCO, which has stopped all its nuclear plants since 2011, said it expects to receive up to 2.37 million kilowatts of electricity from other regional companies Still, it has asked households and businesses to turn off all unnecessary equipment and lights and adjust the heating to a maximum of 20 degrees Celsius to save electricity. CHIEF tk-asb/jpd