On April 20, 2011, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications confirmed that the analog terrestrial TV service will shut down on July 24 in 44 of the 47 prefectures. The three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were heavily damaged by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and its related nuclear accidents, and as a result, television stations in those three prefectures shut down their analog signals nine months later on March 31, 2012.