Mitsubishi Motors says 600 cars potentially damaged in Tianjin port blast

BEIJING (Reuters) - About 600 of Mitsubishi Motors Corp's <7211.T> imported cars may have been damaged from last week's massive explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin that killed more than 100 people, the automaker's China sales subsidiary said. The Japanese automaker has no means to confirm the damage as the area surrounding the blast is closed off, Mitsubishi Motor Sales (China) Co Ltd said in statement on its website on Friday. The firm is already adjusting the allocation of imported cars from the ports of Shanghai and Dalian to dealers to minimize any impact on customers, it said. The government is investigating the cause of the blast that originated in a storage area for toxic chemicals. Renault SA said that nearly 1,500 of its cars had been damaged, while Volkswagen AG and many other global automakers have yet to release figures on the damages. Tianjin is China's largest auto import hub. (Reporting by Jake Spring and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)