Earthquake standards are on shaky ground
No one died in the recent earthquake that struck Tottori Prefecture, but the temblor was strong enough to cause extensive damage. Several thousand people are still in evacuation centers, which means it is not safe for them to live in their homes. Most of ...
Kenyan rescuers race to free woman trapped in rubble of collapsed building
Rescue workers on Thursday were racing to dig out a woman found alive under the rubble of a building in Kenya's capital that collapsed six days earlier, a senior official said. "She cannot move but she is safe," Pius Masai, an official leading the operation, ...
Municipalities face local opposition in battle to build day care centers
A growing number of municipalities have been forced to delay or abandon plans for new day care centers across Japan because of fierce opposition from local residents, despite long waiting lists for such facilities. According to a Kyodo News survey covering municipalities in nine prefectures ...
Construction site sinkhole swallows stretch of Nagoya sidewalk
A stretch of brick sidewalk in Nagoya near a construction site caved in by about 5 meters on Monday evening but there were no injuries. The Aichi Prefectural Police closed traffic around the site and launched an investigation. According to the police, the site, where about ...
Heart of darkness: Nostalgic Tokyo disappearing amid construction boom
The Shinagawa neighborhood of Musashi-Koyama — a vibrant maze of tiny alleyways that once housed dozens of small eateries, tapas restaurants and bars — is now a virtual ghost town. Just a few months ago, regulars would have struggled to squeeze into the myriad watering ...
Building pilings scandal widens; piling worker 'apologizes' to mother
Asahi Kasei Construction Materials Corp., beset by a faked construction-records scandal, says a worker who fabricated data for pilings beneath a tilting condominium in Yokohama manipulated figures for at least eight other facilities nationwide. The facilities include a business hotel in Aichi Prefecture, a public ...
The faulty foundation work at a Yokohama condominum underlines the need for the government to improve the verification system for construction work.
Greater scrutiny urged for building materials after ToyoTire false data saga
A panel of government experts has called for a review of the government's product certification system for construction materials following an investigation into Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. over its defective earthquake shock absorbers. The panel, from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, ...
Komatsu CEO says sluggish construction sales show worsening China slump
Komatsu Ltd.'s customers in China are reluctant to buy construction equipment because they are unsure when building projects will start, underscoring the challenges the Japanese supplier and its peers face in a market that is cooling more than expected. "Things in China are tougher" than ...
A final indignity for those who built Japan
The first time I visited the Sanya district in Tokyo's Taito Ward, I saw a lot of men drunk and passed out in the street and assumed they were all homeless, but as it turned out most worked and rented rooms in the area. Later, ...
At 92, the man who built South Korea's biggest retail empire is finally making his mark in the Seoul skyline as the country's tallest tower takes shape — just as public faith in corporate giants crumbles into safety fears and mistrust. Shin Kyuk-ho first envisioned ...
Shipbuilders rejecting orders amid labor shortage
The depreciation of the yen is boosting demand in industries like shipbuilding, where companies are scrambling to hire enough workers, especially in areas where the number of working-age individuals is declining. The number of people in Japan aged 15 to 64 has steadily declined since ...
