Deadly drops deserve just deserts

A man in Jinan, east China's Shandong province, was sentenced to three years in prison with three years' reprieve because he intentionally threw three beer bottles out of his 10-storey window on July 17. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

The incident has drawn a lot of attention with people questioning the severity of the sentence as no one was hurt by his action.

Those holding such a view probably do not realize how much harm an object falling or thrown from a high-storey building can do. Experiments have shown that even a nail falling from the 18th floor can pierce a person's skull, while a tin can dropped from the 15th floor can do the same.

Even an egg that falls from the fourth floor can badly wound someone. And when the height is raised to the 25th floor, an egg can kill.

The problem is increasingly more serious with the number of high-storey buildings increasing. By the end of 2017, the number of high-storey buildings in China exceeded 347,000, of which over 6,000 are more than 100 meters tall. Both numbers are the highest in the world.

The harm that can be done by throwing objects out of windows has not received its deserved attention yet. A browse at past reports shows that residents have thrown all kinds of objects out of high-storey building windows: Plastic bottles, glass bottles, tin cans, used bicycle parts, paper, plastic bags of used toilet paper …

Worse, some people install simple external frames on their windows for convenience, while some put flower pots outside windows. In case the frames or windows have any problems or the flower pots are blown away, they pose big risks to people's safety.

That's why the situation warrants attention. On Nov 14, the Supreme People's Court issued a judicial explanation, which said that those throwing objects out of high-storey buildings might be found guilty of murder or accidental death if their act caused a fatality.

The man should feel lucky for not having caused any casualty－if he had, he would have faced much harsher penalties than he does right now.