Explosion at Shiespa in Shibuya

[Captain Japan]

4 women injured in explosion at spa facility in Shibuya
Mainichi

An explosion at a spa facility in the Shibuya district of downtown Tokyo on Tuesday afternoon left four women injured, police said.

Officers from Shibuya Police Station were investigating Shiespa, a facility exclusively for women, over the cause of the blast.

The facility is located in an up-market residential district of Shibuya-ku.

This place is right next to Bunkamura. I remember seeing them putting the finishing touches on the funky fountain out front only a few months ago. The Shiespa page is here.

[Mulboyne]

See also New Tokyo Hot Spot For Girls

[Captain Japan]

Their Web page is too overloaded now for me to figure out where the annex is located. Anyone know?

[Mulboyne]

Their Web page is too overloaded now for me to figure out where the annex is located. Anyone know?

Somewhere in Shoto 1-chome.

[Mulboyne]

The Mainichi is now reporting that one girl has died.

[omae mona]

NTV news also says one person with caridac arrest, and 6 others found injured so far. The building is basically right behind the main Shiespa building.

Lots of broken windows on surrounding buildings (houses and the main Shiespa building). Keitai cameraman captured white smoke coming out of the building right after the explosion - TV folks speculating that it is not a gas explosion.

People as far away as Todai's Komaba campus and NHK headquarters say they felt the explosion.

[GuyJean]

The Shiespa page is here.

Looks like they housed their server in the same building as the spa..

GJ

[GuyJean]

I think I used to sneak out of Xanadu/Womb and smoke weed on that street.. Very quiet residential place with lots of foliage..

GJ

[GomiGirl]

Wow - I wondered what all the noise was earlier.. am in harajuku and there were lots of sirens and loudspeakers etc.

[omae mona]

The evening wrap-up from the Nihon Keizai Shinbun says 3 female employees dead, and 3 other people are suffering from burns including a man who was walking by when the explosion happened.

The building housed machinery related to the onsen. Police believe there is a good chance that the explosion was related to natural gas that comes out along with the water supply. They're investigating the possibility of professional negligence resulting in death.

Miraculously, the 47 news helicopters circling the area for 5 hours did not crash into each other, preventing further fatalities.

[gomichild]

Miraculously, the 47 news helicopters circling the area for 5 hours did not crash into each other, preventing further fatalities.

[GomiGirl]

Omae is always a funny bugger!!

[succubusqueen]

Natou & hot water....not a good combination!

[baka tono]

Randomly exploding onsen, possibly due to neglect sheesh whats next killer elevators and roller coasters? Oh wait...

[omae mona]

Omae is always a funny bugger!!

I wouldn't encourage me if I were you. Next thing you know FG will be filled up with oyaji gags.

[Greji]

Randomly exploding onsen, possibly due to neglect sheesh whats next killer elevators and roller coasters? Oh wait...

Probably you should include with that frightening list of titles, the most terrifying of all, the revenge of the killer revolving doors!

[IkemenTommy]

Man, I came back to Tokyo and I see this. Pretty cool.
They should rename this place to the Shitspa

[Captain Japan]

Tokyo metro gov't to check safety of 144 spa facilities
Kyodo

(Kyodo) _ The Tokyo metropolitan government is set to start checking safety management at 144 spa facilities under its jurisdiction Wednesday following Tuesday's explosion at a women-only spa facility in Shibuya Ward, leaving three women dead and eight other people injured.

The metro government plans to check if the spa facilities are equipped with a gas separator -- a device that separates natural gas from underground water -- because it is suspected that natural gas, which gushes upward in piping up hot water from 1,500 meters underground, permeated the annex building and caught fire somehow, officials said late Tuesday.

It plans to alert facility operators to ventilate the building with fans, windows and doors to exhaust the gas.

The metro government also plans to check whether the facilities are equipped with gas detectors. It will have the operators check the device if they already have one and ask them to install one if they do not.

It plans to gather information at the site of the explosion and at the company that operates the spa, which was popular among women since its launch in January last year for its relaxation equipment.

[Blah Pete]

This place should not have been built in a residential area. On the news last night they interviewed residents who tried to stop construction before it ws built.
A 1,500 meter well should not be drilled in a residential area if there is a danger of gas escaping. Ther neighbors must have loved the sound of drilling night and day until they reached 1,500 meters.
Part of the problem is there are no laws governing how the gas in handled when you tap into a hot spring, only industry guidelines. This is a problem in Japan as guidelines are typically set up by something like the Onsen Operators Association. More laws on the books is usually not a good thing but as in the roller coster accident and others industry guidelines are often ignored.

Also on the news last night they mentioned in the past there was a methane fueled onsen fire in Tokyo that burned for one month.

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Gas levels not checked at Shibuya spa

The annex of a spa facility in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward destroyed in an explosion Tuesday that killed three female workers was not equipped with a gas detector, police found Wednesday. A subcontractor in charge of maintenance said its workers were never told to check the gas levels. The annex pumped up hot spring water from 1,500 meters underground and supplied it to the nearby nine-story Shibuya Shoto Onsen Shiespa facility. The Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo Fire Department said the system used in the annex separated natural gas from the hot spring water. Normally, the natural gas is released via a ventilator. Police suspect the system failed, resulting in the natural gas accumulating inside the annex...more...

[IkemenTommy]

This place should not have been built in a residential area.

Like as if they ever had proper zoning laws to start with..

[dimwit]

Residental zoning? WOT's that? Everyone knows that zoning is determined by a dart board. Hit the target determine your neighbor.

As far as I can tell it works something like this:

1-4 house, 5 pachiko parlor, 6 kindergarten, 7 Lawsons, 8 industrial waste dump/garbage incinerator, 9-10 tambo, 11-12 Karaoke box/bar 13 car dealership, 14 low rise apartment 15-16 commercial strip 17 cement factory
18 parking lot 19 prefabricated office building 20 local community hall.
Miss the dart board and you get a sewage canal/drainage ditch.

[IkemenTommy]

Residental zoning? WOT's that? Everyone knows that zoning is determined by a dart board. Hit the target determine your neighbor.

As far as I can tell it works something like this:

1-4 house, 5 pachiko parlor, 6 kindergarten, 7 Lawsons, 8 industrial waste dump/garbage incinerator, 9-10 tambo, 11-12 Karaoke box/bar 13 car dealership, 14 low rise apartment 15-16 commercial strip 17 cement factory
18 parking lot 19 prefabricated office building 20 local community hall.
Miss the dart board and you get a sewage canal/drainage ditch.

You left out concrete:rolleyes:

[Greji]

You left out concrete:rolleyes:

Wrong there Tommy. That is an understood. Everything in Japan is zoned for concrete, floors, walls, ceilings and sidewalks, with the exception of rice paddies and they have been experimenting with that also!

[maraboutslim]

Did they seriously drill a well 1,500 meters? Or is this just an inaccuracy in the reporting?

[omae mona]

[dimwit]

Why is that so surprising? You are in Tokyo. Tokyo is a sedimentary plain. You have to dig down deep to get anywhere near the bedrock.

[IkemenTommy]

Why is that so surprising? You are in Tokyo. Tokyo is a sedimentary plain. You have to dig down deep to get anywhere near the bedrock.

True. You can pretty much dig anywhere in Japan and hit the onsen. They even have the onsen at Odaiba, for fuck sake.

[Captain Japan]

This editorial has a pretty good rundown on what went on...
EDITORIAL: Deadly explosion at spa
Asahi

The explosion at an onsen spa facility in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward that killed three people Tuesday underscored two kinds of danger in creating natural hot springs in the middle of urban areas. The number of hot springs in cities has continued to rise in recent years in response to demands for a quick and easy way to relieve stress. The number of such facilities in Tokyo has increased by about 70 percent since the mid-1990s to around 150.

One danger is that unlike hot springs that have existed for a long time near volcanoes, developers must dig deep into the ground to reach a source in urban areas.

Technically, digging more than 1,000 meters into the ground, as was the case with the facility of Shibuya Shoto Onsen Shiespa where the explosion occurred, is not very difficult thanks to advanced boring machines and pumps.

But the deeper one digs for spring water, the more unwanted substances one finds. The unwanted substances are natural gases, such as methane....more...

[Captain Japan]

Survey warned of Shibuya spa explosion
Gomiuri

A geological survey company warned of a possible natural gas explosion if hot water was pumped up from the spring source indoors in a report about 10 months before the opening of the Shiespa spa facility in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, where an explosion killed three people on June 19, it has been learned.

According to sources, the Metropolitan Police Department's Shibuya Police Station has discovered the geological survey company, commissioned to analyze the natural gas emissions from the hot spring source, submitted a report in March 2005 to Unimatrealestate Co. in Minato Ward, Tokyo, that owns the spa facility and the land it sits on.

Based on the report, the police are investigating whether Unimatrealestate and Unimat Beauty and Spa Inc., the operator of the spa facility, failed to implement safety measures although they had recognized the possibility of a gas explosion...more...