Authorities Yet to Know How Many Dangerous Block Walls in Japan

June 20, 2018

Tokyo- Local governments in Japan have yet to know how many dangerous concrete block walls exist in their administrative districts, although they are tasked to check whether such walls meet the current national building standards.

In Monday's strong earthquake in western Japan, a nine-year-old girl was killed after being trapped under a fallen block wall of an elementary school she was attending in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture. An 80-year-old man died as a block wall nearby collapsed in the city of Osaka.

The height of the fallen block wall along the Takatsuki municipal school's swimming pool was found exceeding the 2.2-meter limit under the standards stipulated in the tightened ordinance to implement the building standards law.

The limit on concrete bock walls' height was lowered from 3 meters in 1981, after nine people died due to wall collapses in the 1978 earthquake off the coast of the northeastern prefecture of Miyagi, in which a total of 28 people were killed.

The tightened ordinance also requires block walls have at least 15 centimeters in thickness, or 10 centimeters for walls up to 2 meters in height, and buttresses every 3.4 meters.

To owners and maintainers of block walls built below standard after the stricter regulations took effect, local governments are to advise them make the walls meet the requirements. If the advice proves ineffective, the governments will issue an improvement order. Law violators are subject to a prison term of up to one year, or a fine of up to one million yen.

Still, block walls built under the old regulations are legal.

"We have no idea how many block walls fail to meet the current standards," an infrastructure ministry official said.

The official also said that repairs of block walls by their owners without permission make it difficult for local governments to acknowledge dangerous walls in light of the current regulations.

In heavily populated municipalities, such as designated major cities, local authorities are expected to take considerable time to survey walls. Jiji Press