Ministry to require portable toilets, drinking water in elevators
The Japan Times
03 June 2015
The infrastructure ministry and the elevator industry agreed that
drinking water and portable toilets should be stored in elevators in
preparation for emergency stoppages after earthquakes, the ministry
said.
The agreement was reached at a meeting after a magnitude-8.1 earthquake
struck near islands south of Tokyo on Saturday evening, causing about
19,000 elevators to stop in the capital and neighboring prefectures,
the ministry said Tuesday.
People were trapped temporarily in 14 elevators and it took 70 minutes
to rescue them in one case, ministry and industry officials said.
Management should make plans
They also said building management companies should make plans to
quickly evacuate high-rises, after many residents on the upper floors
of condo buildings found it difficult to get out with elevator
operations suspended during the latest quake.
The earthquake occurred at a very deep point off the Ogasawara Islands,
around 1,000 km south of Tokyo, registering upper-5 on the Japanese
seismic intensity scale to 7 in Ogasawara and Ninomiya, a town in the
eastern part of Kanagawa Prefecture. No deaths were reported.
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