The rescue of 20 people from an elevator in the Tokyo Skytree tower took place without injury, rescue teams intervened at night and used an emergency bridge to evacuate. The cause of the technical failure is under investigation.
All 20 people, including two children, managed to free themselves from the elevator in the 634-meter-high skyscraper Tokyo Skytree, in which they were stuck for more than five hours last night. No injuries were reported, reports TASR with reference to NHK television.
Tokyo police said two elevators to the 350-meter-high observation deck suddenly stopped on the way down shortly before 8:30 p.m. local time (12:30 a.m. CET) on Sunday. One of them was empty, but the other with 20 people remained standing about 30 meters above the ground.
Rescue of stranded people
Police and other people contacted the people in the cabin by phone and looked for ways to evacuate them. Rescuers from the fire department eventually helped people move to a neighboring elevator, which was lowered to the same height and its emergency door was open. A metal bridge with a railing was installed between the elevators, which were a little more than a meter apart.
The rescue operation ended on Monday around 2:00 a.m. local time. Approximately 1,200 people were temporarily stuck on the observation deck due to a malfunction of the elevators. They all managed to get down by another elevator by 11:00 p.m. local time. The cause of the technical problems is being investigated.
The Skytree tower was opened in 2012 and is among the most popular tourist attractions in the Japanese capital. It is the third tallest building in the world after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur.
