OSAKA – About 20 people were rescued from a giant Ferris wheel in Osaka Prefecture hours after lightning caused the 123-meter-tall structure to stop moving late Tuesday afternoon, the operator and a local fire department said.
Osaka Wheel, an attraction within the Expocity shopping mall and movie multiplex in Suita, is billed as the tallest Ferris wheel in the country. It stands near the Tower of the Sun, which has been preserved as the symbol of the 1970 Japan World Exposition.
Workers were able to manually rotate the wheel structure to allow some riders trapped in the gondolas to step out safely on the ground, while others were rescued via a ladder fire truck.
No injuries were reported. The rescue work ended at around 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday, about nine hours after the wheel stopped working, with a lightning-triggered power outage blamed for the malfunction.
AloJapan.com