The devastating earthquake of Mw9.0 hit the Tohoku district, north-east part of Japan on March 11, 2011. About 16,000 people died and 3,000 people were missing by the strong motion and tsunami, and the economic damage was estimated about 16.9 trillion yen except for the influence by the nuclear accident of Fukushima Danchi Nuclear Power Plant. In addition to the main shock, many strong aftershocks occurred in the long term until June in 2011. The industrial facilities, power plants, or research facilities were damaged in these earthquakes, and various kinds of mechanical equipment set in these facilities were also damaged. The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) have set up the investigation committee and investigated the seismic damage of mechanical equipment of these industrial facilities for the purpose to understand the situation and cause of the damages in such facilities and contribute to improvement of preparedness for the forthcoming earthquake. This paper provides a summary of the investigation, mainly carried out by the Japan Elevator Association^(1), in order to contribute to improve the seismic design of the elevator systems for forthcoming destructive earthquakes. Typical damages of elevator systems and escalator systems utilized in buildings are also shown in this paper. Although the many of the buildings were hit by unexpected massive earthquake, the system damages were considered to be reduced to a certain level especially for the systems designed after the newly issued 2009 Seismic Design Guideline^(2).
