Twenty people were trapped for up to nine hours on Japan’s tallest Ferris wheel on Tuesday after the attraction in a city in Osaka Prefecture came to an emergency stop after a lightning strike.
The 123-meter Osaka Wheel at Expocity, a large shopping and entertainment complex in the city of Suita, made an emergency stop at around 5:47 p.m. during a thunderstorm, leaving the people stranded on nine gondolas.
Staff initially attempted to rotate the wheel manually to bring the gondolas to the platform, but progress was slow. Firefighters and other responders were called to the scene, and the final passengers were brought safely to the ground by 2:41 a.m Wednesday — approximately nine hours after the initial halt.
No injuries were reported.
Takeshi Niwa, PR general manager for the Ferris wheel operator, said the company is currently investigating the details of the shutdown and its causes as well as reviewing response procedures.
According to Niwa, the lightning strike is believed to have caused a malfunction in the wheel’s commercial power supply, causing it to make an emergency stop. However, whether the wheel took the strike directly is currently under investigation.
While the power supply was restored shortly after the outage, the Ferris wheel was unable to operate since the system that manages its power itself then failed, hindering rescue operations. Heating and cooling systems inside the gondolas also became unusable.
The wheel has sustained significant damage and is still out of service. There is no indication when it will be able to resume operations.
AloJapan.com