Police Launch On-Site Probe into 9-Year-Old’s Death in Quake

June 20, 2018

Osaka- Police launched an on-site inspection on Tuesday over the death of a nine-year-old girl in Osaka Prefecture who was trapped under a collapsed wall of an elementary school in Monday's strong earthquake that rocked hard the western Japan prefecture.

The Osaka Prefectural Police Department began the probe at the school in the city of Takatsuki on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in the death of Rina Miyake, a fourth grader at Juei Elementary School, run by the city.

The Takatsuki municipal government found in its inspection of the fallen block wall after the earthquake, which measured lower 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in the city, that the height and other aspects of the wall, which was built to shield the school's pool from the outside, violated the country's building standards.

Specifically, the wall comprised a 1.6-meter-tall section built on top of a 1.9-meter-tall base, exceeding the legal limit of 2.2 meters in height. In addition, the wall lacked buttresses.

Officials from the municipal government said in a press conference on Monday that they did not know why such an illegal wall was built.

They also said that although the city government had inspected the wall around once every three years, it failed to acknowledge the illegality.

The police plan to look at the wall's structure and question city officials involved on why the dangerous wall was built, to learn if there was a fault in safety management.

Meanwhile, the technology ministry's investigation team inspected the site.

According to the five-member team, reinforcing bars connecting the base and the part built above the foundation were only some 30 centimeters long each, suggesting the possibility of poor connection between the two portions.

"We want to determine the cause (of the accident) and hope to take preventive steps by cooperating with other government agencies," Hiroyuki Tanzawa, a ministry official, said. Jiji Press