According to the records, the building where the fire broke out was made of reinforced concrete with eight floors above ground and one below.
According to the website, this café bar is located a 4-minute walk from Shimbashi Station, and is a café bar for horse lovers and those who want to become horse owners, based on the concept of “an oasis for horse lovers.” It is a shop where you can enjoy Japanese sake.
Business hours are from 16:00 to 2:00 midnight from Monday to Friday, and from 15:00 to 23:00 on Saturdays.
Ai Sekizawa, a professor at the Tokyo University of Science, said about the building fire in Shimbashi, Tokyo, “From the situation at the scene, it is thought that some kind of gas leaked into the room on the second floor of the building and ignited it”.
“It caused an explosion and a fire. There was no extensive damage, such as breaking the windows on the floor, so I don’t think it was an explosion that filled the entire building with gas. Therefore, it wasn’t a terrorism”.
The firefighters may not have been able to extinguish the blaze quickly enough, he added, as gas continued to fill the room.
Kazunori Kuwana, a professor at Tokyo University of Science who is familiar with fires and explosions, said, “If a match had caused such a big explosion, the room would have been filled with gas. It is presumed that the gas had scattered around bottom”.
The gas will burn to some extent due to the explosion, but if there is combustible material nearby, it will spread and cause a fire.
In this case, it is possible that combustible materials in the room ignited and caused the fire. Normally, city gas and propane gas smell, so you should know it, but maybe you didn’t notice it until now? ”
“A large explosion could collapse a building with just its skeleton, but this one may not be that big,” he said.
“If you find a gas leak, don’t go inside and report it to the fire department. It’s also important to think about how to evacuate if something happens.”
An employee of a nearby store said, “I felt a big vibration when I was in the store during the break, and when I went out, a cloud of smoke came out. Nothing inside the store fell or broke, but everything was damaged” he said.
