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53 dead in Japan's rush-hour train crash
(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-25 23:52
At least 53 people were killed and more than 400 injured yesterday when a
commuter train derailed, sending a carriage hurtling into an apartment block in
Japan's deadliest rail accident in four decades.
Authorities suspect the train's 23-year-old driver was speeding and failed to
negotiate a corner, throwing four of the train's seven carriages from the tracks
in Amagasaki, a town near Osaka and Kobe.
The train, which was carrying some 580 passengers in the morning rush hour,
appeared to be speeding as the driver was running late after he missed a station
and had to back up to let passengers off.
Aerial view of a derailed commuter train
that smashed into an apartment building in Amagasaki, western Japan April
25, 2005. [Reuters] |
The remains of one carriage were strewn across the apartment building up to
the third floor, with rescue crews racing to tear through the metal to find any
survivors. Another carriage lay tilted on the ground beside it.
"We have confirmed the deaths of 25 males and 24 females. We are yet to
identify the gender of one body," said a spokesman for the fire department in
Amagasaki, some 400 kilometres west of Tokyo.
A police spokesman said 417 people were injured.
The China News Service reported that no Chinese nationals or overseas Chinese
were found to be among the casualties in the accident, which took place in an
region with a large Chinese population.
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