devastating earthquake that rocked central Japan on Tuesday.

But industry sources are doubtful that the Bermuda market's loss will be large.

The earthquake tore through a wide area of central Japan, including the large cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, claiming upward of 2,500 lives.

More than 10,000 buildings in Kobe City, Japan's main western port, were shattered in a 60-mile radius, and the tremor badly buckled roads and railway lines.

But to a large degree, the areas greatly affected were not areas that were highly insured for earthquakes. Much of the concentration of earthquake insurance is in Tokyo.

Top executives in Bermuda-based property catastrophe reinsurers said it could be many months before a real assessment of what the Bermuda market's exposure would be.

They say there is more concern at the moment for the loss of life and property and the enduring difficulties, in human terms, that Japan could face in rebuilding from the catastrophe.

There are expected to be some losses in the Bermuda market, but in many cases exposure could be limited.

"This was a grossly under-insured area,'' said president of Tempest Re, Mr.

Donald Kramer. "The major industrial plants at the moment don't seem to have suffered any great loss. There were a couple, but not that many. The container port was totally destroyed and there will be some cargo losses that will make their way to LLoyd's.

"The damage estimates could be $40 billion, $50 billion. Pick a number, nobody knows. However, the insured damages are relatively small.

"My best guess is at the moment that while there will be some involvement for Bermuda reinsurers, this is likely to be less devastating in dollar terms than Northridge, although by a huge factor it will be more devastating in economic and social terms for the area.

"I think that Bermuda will distinguish itself by being prompt to pay whatever claims are due and having the financial security to take this in stride and not even blink.'' Centre Cat president Mr. Charles Kline said that they have a maximum exposure to earthquake loss of $16.8 million, entirely on an excess of loss basis.

Mr. Kline stated: "We have only three contracts in Japan. We can identify pretty quickly, since we don't cover Japan in any of our other treaties, what our maximum exposure is. We think it's possible that we may suffer a loss, but it would take an enormous loss, a loss larger than we think this is, to exhaust our limits. But it is still early days.'' Mid Ocean Re's senior vice president and chief financial officer, Mr. Charles Hays, said: "It is likely that we will have some degree of loss as a by-product of this earthquake. But as a colleague said, it would be ludicrous to even begin to guess the magnitude of such losses two days after the event.

"I would just remind everyone that four weeks after the Northridge earthquake, people thought it was a $2 billion event. It is now a $10 billion event. So this is an extremely imprecise process.

"In human terms, it is an absolutely enormous tragedy and the worst earthquake that Japan has suffered that I can remember. On the other hand, that does not automatically translate into being the same consequence to the global reinsurance marketplace.

"The Japanese market has many unique features in terms of how its residents and corporations are allowed to insure, which to some extent puts a lot more of the responsibilities and cost on to the Government and/or their local marketplace as opposed to the global reinsurance marketplace. It will be months before people have a real decent handle on the magnitude of these losses.'' Mr. Scott Moore, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Partner Re, conceded that Japan was an important market for his firm for earthquake and windstorm reinsurance.

Mr. Moore said: "We do have exposure there. It's a question of really how the losses will be manifested.

"It takes a while to assess what the damages are at the insured level and how that matches up against the insured's reinsurance programme and then from there, we get to a better position to assess what our own exposure is.

"The Japanese companies need their own time to sort out what their actual losses are under the exposed limits and then we will be in touch with them in the future to try to see what it means to us as a company.'' Japanese companies have been looking to reinsurance companies that are more international in nature. Reinsurance in Japan has been to a large degree provided by the Government, but they have also looked outside to Europe for reinsurance support.

Renaissance Re chairman and CEO Mr. James Stanard said Renaissance's excess catastrophe cover in Japan was relatively light.

He said: "It was a relatively hard market to get a lot of business out of.

There was a range in terms of how enthusiastic different companies were about getting that business.

"It is a huge physical loss, and where it will end up we don't know. But it won't be something that will particularly affect our portfolio.'' Mr. James Bryce, senior vice president, underwriting, at International Property Catastrophe Re said losses won't really be known for a while.

He said: "It is obviously a tragedy in human terms. It is also a significant loss in economic terms.

"But they (the Japanese) must be much more concerned at this stage of containing the fires and saving human life, than coming up with accurate figures at this time.

"We have a modest exposure in Japan. We have a presence. Obviously, we immediately came up with loss estimates, which quite candidly are very, very early and we'd be very uncomfortable discussing them, other than internally.

"It would be very much a guesstimate at this stage. We will have an involvement because it very much is the nature of the product we are selling.

"It is ironic that it is one year, one hour and 15 minutes after the Northridge earthquake.''