Towering buildings on some of the most expensive real estate in the country are gearing up to accept people stranded in central Tokyo in the event of a natural disaster.

Doubling as temporary shelters, the skyscrapers are expected to offer not only food and blankets but also power generators and other anti-disaster facilities.

Such features are believed to directly increase the values of the structures.

Thousands of individuals in the central part of the capital could not return to their homes following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region because the disaster rendered trains and other transportation inaccessible.

The situation for commuters in Tokyo would likely be much worse if a major quake strikes under the capital.

Municipalities and landowners are proceeding with Tokyo’s redevelopment projects with stranded citizens and office workers in mind.

The business districts of Marunouchi and Otemachi are expected to provide accommodation to 25,000 individuals who have difficulty getting home in a disaster.

The Marunouchi Nijubashi Building, erected in 2018, has a power plant and a 250-meter-long underground tunnel in its fourth basement floor.

Equipped with three steam boilers, six turbo refrigerators and two gas engine dynamos, the plant is operated by a company run by such nearby landowners as Mitsubishi Estate Co. to supply electricity to 11 buildings in the surrounding areas.

It sends cooled or heated air to other buildings under normal conditions. But power produced by the dynamos, which is usually consumed within the Marunouchi Nijubashi Building, will go to other buildings in an emergency.

Water will also be sent out for restroom users so that nearby structures can offer shelter to disaster-affected people.

Completed in 2016, a new building in the Otemachi Financial City commercial complex in Otemachi serves as the center for disaster management. The building has an emergency power generator and a purification system to treat well water and used water for use in bathrooms.

An adjacent building houses a medical center and pharmacy, enabling injured people to receive treatment.

In a similar effort, Mitsui Fudosan Co. set up a power distribution center in the Nihonbashi Muromachi Mitsui Tower, built in 2019, to offer dynamo-produced electricity to surrounding buildings.

Mori Trust Co. included a large-capacity generator in the Tokyo World Gate complex, installed in 2020 in the Kamiyacho district, to cover power needs for a week to better respond to emergency situations.

Many other buildings in the capital constructed after the 3/11 disaster also function as shelters for those unable to return home.

The east building of the Shibuya Scramble Square erected in 2019 can accommodate 2,800 individuals, while the 2020-completed Tokyo Portcity Takeshiba has room for 6,300 people.

Established in 2014, the operator of the Toranomon Hills Mori Tower has announced plans to keep foodstuffs and blankets to make the building open to 3,600 people in an emergency.

According to the Tokyo metropolitan government, 1,132 facilities had been secured as tentative evacuation centers by January this year to handle 434,000 people stranded in the aftermath of a disaster.

About 600 of the shelters are reportedly office buildings and other privately run structures.

The Tokyo government eases floor-area ratio restrictions for building operators that are expected to make their lobbies and other spaces available to provide temporary accommodation in emergencies.

Shibuya Ward in the capital obliges large-building developers to accept stranded individuals.

The total disaster shelter capacity rose by nearly 150,000 people over five years partly because of redevelopment work in the central zone of the capital.

However, if a long-expected earthquake strikes below the Tokyo metropolitan area, an estimated 920,000 people would lose their way to get home because of suspended transportation operations.

Another problem involves how to guide people to shelter buildings. The destruction from a disaster could cause confusion over how to reach buildings equipped to accept those individuals.

Mitsubishi Estate is developing a system that lets people use smartphones to check evacuation shelters and each facility’s occupancy ratio.

“Facilities that accept stranded individuals can be found out only during times of natural disasters because there are no means to search for them,” said Kotaro Sawabe, 59, a chief at the city planning and designing division of Mitsubishi Estate responsible for the program. “A big challenge is how to make their information available.”