Japanese retailer Aeon said on Tuesday that it allowed some workers in its Kumamoto shopping mall to reenter the earthquake-hit facility just before a fatal explosion occurred on July 28.
Workers evacuated Aeon Mall Kumamoto in the town of Kashima, Kumamoto Prefecture, after a massive earthquake that day.
But some of them asked to return to their shops to collect personal items such as car keys and mobile phones and to secure the cash registers. Aeon permitted temporary reentry, the company said.
The explosion killed seven shop workers who returned to the facility, raising questions about Aeon¡¯s judgment.
Aeon explained that many workers at the facility commuted by car and that some would have been unable to return home without their keys.
But the company¡¯s quake disaster response rules do not stipulate how to address the need to collect personal belongings or respond to situations in which workers become unable to return home.
Aeon will revise the rules to allow shopping facility workers to carry their valuables on them during work to eliminate the need to reenter facilities after evacuation.
The Kumamoto quake, which registered a seismic intensity of up to 7, the highest level on the Japanese scale, occurred around 4:30 p.m. on July 28.
According to Aeon, the office of Aeon Mall Kumamoto announced the cancellation of the day¡¯s business operations at 5:21 p.m. and issued instructions to return home to workers of shops in the facility through its safety confirmation system.
Aeon made no official announcement on the day that its evacuation instructions had been lifted or that workers were allowed to reenter the facility.
The explosion occurred around 5:50 p.m.
Aeon has said it did not know who was permitted to reenter and was unaware of the exact situation at the scene. The company will investigate the accident through a committee of outside experts.
¡°We take it seriously that people on the scene were left to make judgments because of the lack of rules, manuals, and training and operation systems to deal with situations after evacuation,¡± an Aeon official said.
At a news conference on July 29, Aeon President Akio Yoshida said, ¡°Rules in our manuals say that those who have evacuated must not reenter the buildings.¡±
Any such reentry would be ¡°an act that deviates from the rules,¡± he also said. ¡°If you ask me whether the rules had not been thoroughly enforced, I guess that may be the case.¡±
On Tuesday, many people including Kumamoto Gov. Takashi Kimura visited the facility to offer flowers for the victims two weeks after the disaster.
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