As Honda's Research and Development Centre at Tochigi, Japan was damaged in the March 2011 earthquake, designers of the European Civic were transferred to the Swindon plant in the UK, where all European Civic hatchbacks are built, to ensure the development is not delayed. Production at Swindon, UK, was disrupted by supply chain disruption caused by the 2011 Japanese tsunami and flooding in Thailand. Normal production of Civic did not start until December 2011, causing the new Civic to not be available on the market until February 2012.