Firm admits to falsifying quake shock absorber data

Tokyo: A company supplying equipment to protect major buildings in Japan from earthquakes has admitted falsifying data, authorities said, stressing that there was no immediate safety risk.

Tokyo-based parts maker KYB and its unit Kayaba System Machinery falsified data linked to socalled “oil dampers”, which are used in nearly 1,000 buildings across Japan, the land ministry said yesterday.

It declined to name buildings affected, but local media reported that they may include the Tokyo Skytree – one of the world’s tallest buildings at 634m – as well as the Tokyo government’s headquarters.

The ministry has instructed the companies involved to change affected parts as soon as possible and investigate why the data manipulation happened.

But it insisted that buildings using the parts would still withstand even a quake at the top end of the Japanese seismic intensity scale, in which “it is impossible to remain standing” and “people may be thrown through the air”.

The shock absorbers are part of a complex system fitted in many Japanese buildings as part of the nation’s earthquake preparedness.

They are meant to function in tandem with systems built into the foundations to isolate the effects of quakes. The earthquake systems allow big buildings to sway slightly as they absorb some seismic waves, but if they sway too much or too little, they could suffer damage.

“We don’t know how and why data was falsified and we have ordered (the companies) to investigate the cause and submit a report on it,” a ministry official said.

The ministry said thousands of oil dampers, manufactured between March 2000 and last month, were involved in the scandal.

The company said on Tuesday that products made between January 2003 and last month had “high possibility of data falsification”, while products made since March 2000 may also have the same problem.