Luminous paint displays an emergency evacuation route in darkness in Yamada, Iwate Prefecture. (Wataru Sekita)
YAMADA, Iwate Prefecture Emergency stairways in this coastal town are now coated in a special luminous paint to help guide residents to safety even after dark if disaster strikes.
The luminous paint can glow for more than 12 hours once it has captured sufficient sunlight or fluorescence.
The paint is the brainchild of Iwate Prefecture residents Yasushi Anazawa and Kenichi Sasaki, who both have bitter memories of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Anazawa, 66, is a former researcher with the Iwate Industrial Research Institute in Morioka and Sasaki, 58, is president of a paint company in Ichinoseki, both in the prefecture.