57 die as ‘speeding’ commuter train derails

A PACKED commuter train, which was behind schedule and may have been speeding, jumped the tracks yesterday, killing 57 people and injuring 440 in Japan’s worst rail accident in 40 years.

Investigators focused on whether excessive speed or the actions of the inexperienced 23-year-old driver caused the crash in an urban area near Amagasaki, about 250 miles west of Tokyo.

The driver overshot the last station before the wreck, and a crew member and several passengers speculated the train was speeding to make up time.

Floodlights were trained on one of the worst-damaged cars as rescuers tried to free at least three people still alive in the wreckage more than 11 hours after the 9.18am crash, said Yoshiki Nishiyama of the Amagasaki fire department. The fate of the driver was unknown.

The seven-car commuter train was carrying 580 passengers when it derailed, wrecking a car in its path before slamming into the garage of a nine-story apartment building.

"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," said passenger Tatsuya Akashi. "I didn't know what happened, and there were many people bleeding."

Photos taken by an NHK reporter aboard the train showed passengers piled on the floor and some clawing to escape.

Police official Hiroshi Yamatani said the death toll had hit 57, with at least 440 people taken to hospitals, including 137 with broken bones and other serious injuries.

It was not clear how many of the dead were passengers or if bystanders and apartment residents were among the victims.

The accident was the worst rail disaster in nearly 42 years in safety-conscious Japan.

A three-train crash in November 1963 killed 161 people in Tsurumi, outside Tokyo.

Distraught relatives rushed to hospitals yesterday to search lists of the injured and dead. Takamichi Hayashi said his older brother, 19-year-old Hiroki, had called their mother on a cell phone from one of the cars just after the crash but remained unaccounted for. He had heard Hiroki was among the four whom rescuers were trying to free.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash.

Tsunemi Murakami, safety director for train operator West Japan Railway Co, estimated the train would have had to be going 82mph to have jumped the track purely because of excessive speed, and the crash happened at a curve that required the driver to slow to 43mph.

Murakami said it still was not certain how fast the train was going. A crew member aboard told police later he "felt the train was going faster than usual", NHK said, echoing comments from survivors interviewed by the network that the driver seemed to be trying to make up for lost time after overshooting the previous station by 25 feet and having to back up.

The train was nearly two minutes behind schedule, media reports said.

Investigators also found evidence of rocks on the tracks, but hadn't determined whether that contributed to the crash, he said.

Experts suspected a combination of factors was to blame.

"There might have been several conditions at work speed, winds, poor train maintenance or ageing rails," Kazuhiko Nagase, a Kanazawa Institute of Technology professor and train expert, told NHK.

NHK also reported the automatic braking system on that stretch of track is among the oldest in Japan. The system stops trains at signs of trouble without requiring drivers to take emergency action, but the older system cannot halt trains travelling at high speeds, NHK said.

The driver identified as Ryujiro Takami had obtained his operator's license in May 2004. One month later, he had overshot a station and was issued a warning, railway officials and police said.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered condolences to families of the dead and pledged officials would do everything they could to prevent a recurrence.