![Sennichi Fire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Sennichi_Fire.jpg)
The Sennichi Department Store Building fire occurred in Sennichimae, Minami-ku (now
Chuo-ku),
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
on May 13, 1972.
The fire killed at least 118 people and injured another 78.
It was the worst department store fire in terms of casualties in Japan. The building that housed the department store also contained various other businesses, including a
cabaret
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...
. All of the victims had been in the cabaret.
Venue
At the time of the fire, there were shops directly run by the Sennichi Department Store in the first and second floors,
supermarkets
A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...
on the third and fourth floors, stores of the same prices on the fifth floor, game corners on the sixth floor, a cabaret called Playtown that was run by an affiliated company and a showroom "haunted house" and coffee house underground. It was a "conglomerate building" with different administrators. The sixth floor was partly under construction to become a bowling alley and the third floor was also under construction.
The building, which had previously been a
Kabuki theater, had no
fire sprinkler system
A fire sprinkler system is an active fire protection method, consisting of a water supply system, providing adequate pressure and flowrate to a water distribution piping system, onto which fire sprinklers are connected. Although historically on ...
. The existence of various different types of enterprises within one building was also a problem. The regulations and laws at the time of the construction of buildings collectively allowed these faults to occur.
Fire
![Sennichi Department Store Building aerial photograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Sennichi_Department_Store_Building_aerial_photograph.jpg)
On Saturday night, May 13, 1972, the seventh-floor Playtown cabaret was filled to capacity with 181 patrons,
as it was among the most popular night spots in Osaka. There were partitions in the
fire exits, but they were not operational and the fire shutter, which was not automatic, was also out of order. The fire started at 22:27 on the third floor, where women's dresses were sold and several electricians were working.
The cause of the fire was said to be a
cigarette butt
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
or a
smouldering
Smouldering (British English) or smoldering (American English; see spelling differences) is the slow, flameless form of combustion, sustained by the heat evolved when oxygen directly attacks the surface of a condensed-phase fuel. Many solid mate ...
match left behind by a construction worker. Immediate attempts to extinguish the fire failed. Notification to the fire station was delayed by 13 minutes and the fire department was informed at 22:40 and started
firefighting
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter.
Firefighters typically ...
at 22:43. By that time, the third and fourth floors were fuming black smoke. Women's dresses for sale caught fire and helped spread the fire. The four floors from the second to the fifth were ablaze.
Toxic
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...
gases and smoke resulting from burning construction materials filled the stairway and caused the majority of the casualties. The cabaret's locked exits contributed to the death toll.
When elevators ceased to function after the fire severed power cables, the situation turned into a
mass panic
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for c ...
. While the cabaret had safety measures in the form of canvas
escape chute
An escape chute is a special kind of emergency exit, used where conventional fire escape stairways are impractical. The chute is a fabric (or occasionally metal) tube installed near a special exit on an upper floor or roof of a building, or a tal ...
s, the equipment was not used properly, and evacuation directions were not given by the three cabaret workers familiar with the layout. Instead, the staff fled, utilizing a
stairwell unknown to many customers.
Eyewitnesses on the streets recounted that many victims had broken windows and climbed out and clung to the window ledges before firefighters arrived, with many falling to their deaths.
Responding firefighters who entered the cabaret found that many of the victims may have not had enough time to react to the fire, discovering individuals without
thermal burn
A thermal burn is a type of burn resulting from making contact with heated objects, such as boiling water, steam, hot cooking oil, fire, and hot objects. Scalds are the most common type of thermal burn suffered by children, but for adults thermal ...
s and positioned as they were engaging in daily activities. They found a deceased victim sitting on a sofa holding a glass of whisky, and another on the stage still holding onto the microphone.
About 49 victims were evacuated via ladders, but many deaths were attributed to the misuse of the two tubular canvas escape chutes.
Victims
Twenty-four people attempted to escape by jumping from windows, and about 20 people died while attempting to use an emergency escape chute that collapsed.
Ninety-six were found dead inside the cabaret.
The fire was brought under control the next day and finally extinguished on the third day. Of the dead, 93 suffered
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
poisoning,
three died from compression injuries in the chest and abdomen (meaning that they were probably trampled to death) and about 20 died from jumping.
Police told reporters that about 49 people had been rescued unhurt and that 42 others were injured.
Of the injured, 27 were firemen.
Legal
Two people from the Sennichi Department Store and two people from the Playtown cabaret were indicted for occupational
negligence
Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...
resulting in fire and casualties. On November 29, 1990, the remaining three persons were finally found guilty. A department administrator was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and six months with suspension of three years; two persons involved with the cabaret were sentenced to one year and six months with suspension of two years. One of the department store personnel died during the trial.
Aftermath
After the fire and the
1973 Taiyo Department Store fire
The Taiyo Department Store fire was a fire at the Taiyo Department Store, a department store in Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. The fire started at 1:15 p.m. on November 29, 1973; 103 people died. After the fire, regulations pertaining ...
, both of which caused many casualties, amendments were made to construction and fire regulations to prevent the possibility of smoke hindering people who are trying to escape a fire.
The building was demolished and another store, a branch of
Bic Camera
is a consumer electronics retailer chain in Japan. Currently, it has 41 stores in Japan. Bic Camera has a 50% ownership of former rival store Kojima and full ownership of computer store chain Sofmap.
As of 2018, Bic Camera is the third largest ...
, was built in its place. However, many ghost stories about the victims of the fire seen at the site of the disaster have arisen.
References
*Database of failures "Sennichi Department Fire" by Tokyo University Professor Ken-ichi Horikawa (source of information, National Diet Library)
External links
Database of failures "Sennichi Department Fire" by Tokyo University Professor Ken-ichi Horikawa, in JapanesePeculiar fire cases, in Japanese
{{Club fires
1972 fires in Asia
Building and structure fires in Japan
Department store fires
1972 in Japan
History of Osaka Prefecture
Osaka
May 1972 events in Asia