Rail boss resigns over horror crash
The president of West Japan Railway is to resign following a horrific derailment that killed 107 people, it was announced today.
Takeshi Kakiuchi, 61, is stepping down because of the derailment on April 25 in Amagasaki, western Japan, West JR spokesman Makoto Masamoto said.
Kakiuchi will be replaced by the Osaka-based company’s vice president, Masao Yamazaki, 62.
A commuter train jumped its tracks during the morning rush hour, smashing into a block of flats in Amagasaki, about 250 miles west of Tokyo. The crash, Japan’s worst since 1963, killed 107 people and injured more than 500 others.
The resignation followed another fatal derailment in Yamagata, northern Japan, by another company in the JR group, but it was not known whether the case was related.
Four people died and more than 30 other passengers were injured as the six-car express train operated by JR East skidded off its tracks, swept by a sudden gust in a blizzard. The cause of the accident is being investigated.
In the Amagasaki accident, investigators believed the train’s 23-year-old driver, who was among the dead, was far exceeding the speed limit.
Train drivers face heavy pressure to keep to timetables in Japan, which is famous for its punctual rail service. West JR has acknowledged that psychological pressure on an inexperienced driver might have contributed to the accident.
The case triggered national concerns about the safety of public transportation and triggered government inspections into the nation’s railway operation.
West JR has since improved an emergency braking system, relaxed its timetables to allow for more time between trains and retrained its drivers in the run-up to the resumption of service.
