Tsunami Fears Fuel Sale of Mini Noah’s Arks
Japanese company finds market for yellow, ball-shaped survival shelters.
| Posted Friday, Sept. 30, 2011, at 2:24 PM
Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images.
The animals will once again go two-by-two into Noah's Ark, thanks to a Japanese company's reboot of the biblical ship. That is, if by "the animals" you mean "up to four adult humans." And even then, it'll be a bit crowded.
"Noah," a yellow, ball-shaped survival shelter built by Cosmo Power, is a response to the possibility of another tsunami in Japan. Although the company introduced Noah to the world four years ago, there wasn't enough interest in the product to actually sell it until the devastating earthquake and tsunami of last March, which left over 20,000 people dead or missing.
After the disaster, as ABC News oh-so tastefully writes, "Cosmo Power said it has been flooded with calls." The product went into production, and is now ready to sell to the public.
Not to be confused with this attempt to build Noah's ark, or the Noah's Ark theme park being built in Kentucky, "Noah" retails for about $4,000.
It's survived repeated crash tests and is made of an enhanced fiberglass that the company says is disaster-proof. It floats, has ventilation and a lookout window. They've sold 600 capsules already after the product was completed earlier this month.
Company president Shoji Tanaka hyped the product to the Associated Press, like so: "This is the only shelter that guarantees protection from any natural disaster."
You can check out a photo of it here.
