A fire in a high-rise block of flats inspired a Chinese man to invent an emergency evacuation slide that enables residents to quickly escape from buildings, mainland media reports.
Zhou Miaorong, who is in his 70s, and lives on the 35th floor of a block of flats in Shanghai’s Changning district, created the slide placed on top of stairs inside the stairwell that can accommodate up to 100 people at a time, the news website Thepaper.cn reported on Wednesday.
A controlled descent using the slide means that people can escape down the stairwell at a speed of three seconds per floor, the report said.
Zhou spent two years designing the slide to help people escape from buildings after a fire occurred on the upper floors of a tower block where he was living in 2010.
Then he built a prototype at the block of flats where he lives to prove that it worked.
A reporter from Thepaper.cn tested the slide for the article and slid down from the 26th floor to the ground in just 90 seconds.
Zhou’s design has now been patented and sold in countries around the world, including the United States, Europe, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Singapore.
The slide measures about 50 centimetres wide and is made of stainless steel and aluminium.
It is divided into sections that run down the stairwell between the floors of buildings.
Each section is folded up against the wall of the stairwell to save space when it is not in use.
In the event of a fire or earthquake, residents on any floor of the building can unlock the nearest section of the slide, which then lies on top of the stairs.
Unlocking it will automatically unfold all the remaining sections below. These sections then link up into one giant slide running down through the entire building.
Protective pads for users are also stored on each floor.
“The design will also allow users to slow down when they turn the corner of the stairwell, but it will never stop, which will enable you to slide all the way down to the bottom,” Zhou was quoted as saying by Thepaper.cn.
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