KYB Corp., which has admitted to falsifying quality data on earthquake shock absorbers, unveiled the names of 70 affected buildings on Friday, saying 11 of them, including the farm ministry building, had devices not conforming to government standards installed.

The holder of the top share in the seismic isolator and damping device market in Japan acknowledged earlier this week that it had rewritten inspection data on absorbers for over a decade, possibly affecting over 1,000 buildings nationwide.

(KYB Senior Managing Executive Officer Keisuke Saito, right)

Of the 70 buildings identified with owners' consent, including the Finance Ministry building, 17 did not meet standards set by customers. KYB said the remainder are also suspected of being nonconforming.

Most of the disclosed buildings were prefectural and municipal offices, such as those in Osaka and Hokkaido, respectively.

Senior Managing Executive Officer Keisuke Saito apologized at a packed press conference in Tokyo for only being able to identify a small portion of the total affected buildings, which also includes condominiums, hospitals and commercial facilities.

"We intend to make public the rest of the buildings" following consultations with owners, he said.

The Tokyo-based industrial component manufacturer said some of the quake shock absorbers were exported to Taiwan but were small in scale. It did not ship its absorbers to other foreign markets.

KYB previously said 987 buildings were suspected to be affected by the false-data quake absorbers but raised the number to 1,095 on Friday.

The operator of the landmark Tokyo Skytree tower separately said the same day that it has confirmed the use of such devices at the tourist attraction.

KYB and its subsidiary altered quality data on two types of oil dampers at their plants in central Japan, apparently aiming to reduce the burden of holding additional tests for products that failed quality inspections.

Quality inspections were undertaken by a single official and the practice of cheating on data was passed down by successive inspectors verbally, in a malpractice stretching from January 2003 to this September.

(Oil damper installed at Aichi prefectural government office)

KYB also said earlier Friday it used earthquake shock absorbers with uncertified materials for 165 buildings, and shipped them between January 2005 and September this year. The company said it will apply for fresh certifications.

KYB said it erroneously believed that it did not need to obtain fresh certifications when it adopted pistons made of materials different from state-sanctioned ones, as their chemical components and mechanical nature were equivalent to the certified materials.

The infrastructure ministry said there was no risk that the affected buildings could collapse, even if they are hit by a quake at the top of Japan's seismic intensity scale.

Work to replace the faulty earthquake shock absorbers will not be expected to be completed before September 2020.

Replacement of KYB quake shock absorbers to last until fall 2020

Data cheating worries spread to Tokyo Skytree, Olympic buildings