The concrete block wall that fatally collapsed over a 9-year-old girl in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, due to a major quake that struck the prefecture, was found to have not been reinforced by buttresses that were required as per an order of a relevant law.
It was also found that before its collapse the height of the wall, which was built next to a pool of the municipal Juei Elementary School, was about 3.5 meters, far taller than the maximum height of 2.2 meters as regulated by the enforcement order of the Building Standard Law.
The Osaka prefectural police and other authorities are investigating the incident.
The wall comprises concrete blocks piled up to about 1.6 meters high on top of the 1.9-meter-tall foundation. The order requires the installation of buttresses for a wall of more than 1.2 meters tall in order to prevent the blocks from collapsing. According to the Takatsuki city government, there were no buttresses built to reinforce the collapsed wall.
The law requires public facilities of certain sizes to undergo a regular inspection, once every three years. The elementary school underwent the inspection in January 2017, but it is possible that the illegal construction of the wall had been overlooked. The city government will examine how the inspection was commissioned and the situation at that time.
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