A 6-year-old died in a revolving door at Roppongi Hills on Friday.
Japan Times story is here. Poor kid, and poor parents.
Quite what they are doing making and then installing a death-trap like this, I have no idea. Doesn't anyone test these bloody things?
The building next to our has similar doors. I always prefer to use the regular doors, but recently they started locking them, so that the only way in and out is these revolving doors. Once, when I was in the thing, it stopped for quite a long time, and I remember being concerned that there was no emergency button or emergency way out from inside the doors.
This, Chris (in case you are still reading), would be the perfect case for a non-ridiculous lawsuit, although that is obviously of little comfort to the relatives of the dead boy. I think the fallout from this accident is going to be big.
UPDATE
Cornelius was there just after the tragedy, and saw the horrible aftermath.
There are now guards watching all the revolving doors in the building I work in, and the doors in the building next door have been changed from the 'revolving' setting, to the 'regular' automatic, sliding door setting.
Posted by Gary at March 29, 2004 12:10 PMGary, the question now on everybody's mind: was it terrorism? There are rumours (in the INTERNET), that an unnamed extremist organisation has exchanged encoded messages believed to contain details on automatic doors. How do you respond to that suggestion?
Posted by: Dirk at March 29, 2004 03:22 PM...and they must've infiltrated Mori Building Co. from the outset and tampered with the revolving door designs...
Seriously though, I'm not all that comfortable working at Roppongi Hills. Even with all the security - wait, the old retired men in uniform. Roppongi Hills is now experiencing large volumes of tourists out for spring break. This means lots of families, tour buses shuttling old folks, etc. Not to mention Lehman Bros. and Goldman Sachs keep offices here, oh yeah, and Vodafone too!
Posted by: Cornelius at March 30, 2004 02:00 PM