Seika Dormitory was constructed in the middle of Tokyo in 1927 to house predominantly Taiwanese students studying at the nearby Takushoku University.

In 2007, one of the residents fell asleep with a lit cigarette which started a fire inside the room. Soon after that, most of the ground floor of Seika Dormitory became engulfed in flames.

You can see the extent of the damage to Seika Dormitory in many of the images.

The roof of the three storey Seika Dormitory was completely burnt down, there were personal belongings in many of the rooms partially melted from the...Read More

Seika Dormitory was constructed in the middle of Tokyo in 1927 to house predominantly Taiwanese students studying at the nearby Takushoku University.

In 2007, one of the residents fell asleep with a lit cigarette which started a fire inside the room. Soon after that, most of the ground floor of Seika Dormitory became engulfed in flames.

You can see the extent of the damage to Seika Dormitory in many of the images.

The roof of the three storey Seika Dormitory was completely burnt down, there were personal belongings in many of the rooms partially melted from the intense heat, and some rooms were destroyed beyond recognition of anyone having ever lived there.

Most of the rooms show the signs of people having left everything behind to escape the fire. There are kitchens with dishes still in drying racks, clothes hung out to dry, waiting to be folded and put away, and personal belongings such as toys, books and record collections still left as they were when the residents evacuated the building.

The building had a sense of overwhelming sadness about it.

As we were leaving, we met one of the former residents walking onto the site. He told us he still parked his car at the site as it was free for ex-residents.He told us about the morning the fire started and that it had claimed the life of two of the people who used to live there.

There was apparent, some kind of three-way wrangle of ownership between China, who owned the land, Taiwan whose people occupied the building and Japan, on which the building stood. Demolition was unable to take place until this had been resolved.

The building was eventually demolished in 2013 and at the time of writing is a vacant block. Read less