Dozens killed as commuter train smashes into flats
A crowded commuter train derailed and smashed into a block of flats in western Japan today, killing at least 37 people and injuring 200 others.
The cause was under investigation amid fears that the death toll could rise.
The seven-carriage commuter train was carrying 580 passengers when it jumped the tracks, wrecking a car in its path before slamming into the nine-storey complex just yards away. One of the cars was flattened against the wall of the building and hundreds of rescue workers and police swarmed the wreckage and tended to the injured.
The cause of the crash in an urban area near Amagasaki, about 250 miles west of Tokyo, was not immediately known, but survivors said excessive speed may have been a factor. Attention focused on the inexperienced, 23-year-old driver, who overshot the stop line at the last station before the accident.
“There was a violent shaking, and the next moment I was thrown to the floor ... and I landed on top of a pile of other people,” passenger Tatsuya Akashi told national broadcaster NHK. “I didn’t know what happened, and there were many people bleeding.”
Hyogo Prefectural Police said the death toll had hit at least 37. It was not clear how many of the dead were passengers or if bystanders and apartment residents were among the victims. Some passengers were apparently still in the wreckage.
The accident was the worst rail disaster in recent memory in Japan, which is home to one of the world’s most complex and heavily travelled rail networks.
“There are many theories but we don’t know for sure what caused the accident,” chief Cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said. “The prime minister instructed us to respond with urgency.”
The train operator, West Japan Railway, apologised.
“Our most important task now is to rescue the passengers from the accident and we are doing our best,” company president Takeshi Kakiuchi said.
Survivors said the force of the derailment sent passengers tumbling through the inside of the carriages. Photos taken by an NHK reporter aboard the train showed passengers piled on the floor and some clawing to escape.
NHK said the train collided with a car in between stations while it was running at 43mph.
Investigators struggled to com up with reasons for the crash. Tsunemi Murakami, the train operator’s safety director, estimated that the train would have had to have been going at 82mph to have jumped the track purely because of excessive speed.
He said it still was not certain how fast the train was running at the time of the accident.
The driver’s inexperience may also have been a factor. He only had 11 months’ experience, and had committed a previous overrun at a station in June 2004, officials said.
Authorities mobilised for a speedy rescue. The government in Tokyo dispatched Self-Defence Force soldiers to the disaster scene to assist.
An earthquake in 2004 caused a bullet train to derail – the first since the high-speed trains went into service 40 years ago.
