Shinkansen crashes -- 40, no 60, no 34 hurt

[Taro Toporific]

Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 40 injured
Kyodo Press Friday July 18, 2003, 11:34pm
NAGASAKI --- An express passenger train derailed and overturned Friday night on the JR Nagasaki Line in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, injuring about 40 passengers, police said.
The injured passengers sustained minor injuries, but the driver is believed to be seriously injured, rescue officials said, adding no deaths have been reported.
....The story is developing.... The live pictures on the NHK Breaking News Flash now look BAD like well, ummm, a train wreck. Kyodo Press July 18 (23 :54) Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 60 people injured - NAGASAKI

[Taro Toporific]

Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 40 injured
Kyodo Press Friday July 18, 2003, 11:34pm

At 1am Sat July 19. NHK News said 34 persons are hospitalized.
Here's the list of how many persons...

July 19 (01 :25) Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 35 people injured - NAGASAKI
July 18 (00 :09) Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 60 people injured - NAGASAKI
July 18 (23 :54) Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 60 people injured - NAGASAKI
July 18 (23 :47) Kyodo news summary -10- - TOKYO

July 18 (23 :34) Passenger train derails in Nagasaki, 40 injured - NAGASAKI




Passengers Hurt in Japan Derailment
Associated Press / Fri, Jul. 18, 2003
...Rescuers were pulling passengers from the six-car train, which had been traveling from Nagasaki to Hakata on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu, Nagasaki prefectural (state) police official Isao Oshima said. Two cars were laying on their side, he added...The train appeared to have jumped its tracks after hitting a rock, according to the report.

[Captain Japan]

[b]At 1am Sat July 19. NHK News said 34 persons are hospitalized.
Here's the list of how many persons...

I don't think this was a Shinkansen.

And what is really surprising is that this isn't even news. I've watched NHK interupt the Yankees game twice with newsbreaks and they just talk about the rain - which I'm guessing had something to do with the accident - in Kyushu. Not one mention of the accident was made. Forty-whatever injuries - with two serious - should be a big deal.

Now Ishii is on the mound for the Dodgers and getting mashed...

[stuckinkysuhu]

This is a tokkyuu train not a shinkansen.



It looks like that. It's kind of scary, because it is one of the most highly advanced trains in Japan. I think its won awards. The interior is great. I ride this thing all the time and its much more comfortable than the shikansen. Nice leather seats and everything. I am also surprised it hasn't been more of a news item. I can't remember last time a train derailed.

[Taro Toporific]

[mercutio]

the train was on a stretch where the normal speed is around 120 kph...

The truly remarkable thing is that no one was killed. Nice piece of engineering work there.

[Gaisaradatsuraku!]

I heard on the news that they were claiming a rock "fell" onto the tracks. How did a rock "fall" on the tracks when it looks like the train was going through a ricefield at the place it wrecked?

[Taro Toporific]

I heard on the news that they were claiming a rock "fell" onto the tracks. How did a rock "fall" on the tracks when it looks like the train was going through a ricefield at the place it wrecked?

Ha! I thought that too. Some of the Japanese TV news programs have been saying something more like "the rock happened upon the tracks" alluding that someone (or some crow) could have put it there. There was a soft 10m embankment about 1 km before the crash site. Bottom line: --Lost in the translation, again--

[American Oyaji]

Investigators said the train plowed through shrubs and damaged 200 meters of railway sleepers. The track is lined by five-meter-high embankments on both sides.

thats how the rock got down there, but I think it was pushed.

[Captain Japan]

Train Wreck in Hokkaido, Japan Injures 51 People
Bloomberg

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- At least 51 people were injured when a train slammed into an 11-ton trailer truck at a railway crossing in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

There were 60 to 70 people on the single-car train, which was traveling about 148 miles (238 kilometers) north-east of Sapporo, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Three people were seriously injured, said Sadaharu Itoya, fire department general manager of Bihori, where the accident occurred.

More than half of the passengers were high school students with their parents headed for a graduation ceremony, Itoya said. The truck driver, a 45-year-old man, was arrested by Bihori police for inflicting accidental injury, Kyodo News reported.

The train was driven by a 29-year old who had worked with Hokkaido Railway for seven years, according to the company's spokesman Kosaka. The crash and derailment happened at 8:22 a.m.

Japan had its worst rail accident in 42 years in April 2005 when a train derailed about 300 miles southwest of Tokyo and slammed into a condominium, killing 50 people and injuring hundreds.