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Two people feared dead on Japan bullet train after man tried to set himself alight Two people dead in Japan bullet train fire after man set himself alight
(35 minutes later)
A passenger on one of Japan’s high-speed bullet trains set himself on fire on Tuesday, filling a carriage with smoke, Japanese officials said. Two people have died in a fire aboard a moving Japanese bullet train on Tuesday, in the first fatal incident on the high-speed rail network in its 50-year history.
National broadcaster NHK said the man and a female passenger were dead. One man died apparently after setting fire to himself, and a woman was also found dead after being overcome by smoke.
Japan’s transport ministry and a fire official said the victims were in a state of “cardiopulmonary arrest,” the term used before official confirmation. Japanese media quoted a witness as saying the man, who has not been named, poured an oil-like substance over his head and set himself alight with a cigarette lighter about 30 minutes after the train, carrying 1,000 passengers, had left Tokyo en route to Osaka.
The incident – which caused smoke to fill the carriage, forcing the train to stop – occurred as the train passed near Odawara city, west of Tokyo, on its way to Osaka. Reports said two other passengers in the same carriage were seriously injured and at least 20 others were treated for smoke inhalation.
Public television NHK said dozens of passengers were injured after inhaling smoke. The fire has now been extinguished and passengers evacuated from the train, NHK said. Aerial TV footage showed white smoke coming from the train and passengers holding handkerchiefs over their faces as they evacuated. One was holding a baby.
After the Shinkansen bullet train made an emergency stop, a passenger was found at the entrance of a carriage covered in flammable liquid, officials said. Public broadcaster NHK showed remaining passengers peering through the windows and open doors of the 16-carriage train after it made an emergency stop on the line between Shin Yokohama and Odawara stations about 70km (45 miles) south of Tokyo.
Unconfirmed media reports said a man in his 30s had set himself on fire. The incident, which occurred at around 11.30am local time, caused the cancellation of other bullet trains due to leave Tokyo at lunchtime. Central Japan Railway said it would be “some time” before services resumed.
Footage on TBS television showed a train carriage filled with smoke and passengers evacuating with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces. One clutched a baby to their chest. The dead man, believed to be in his 30s, was reportedly sitting at the front of the first carriage behind the driver’s cabin when, without warning, he poured an unidentified liquid from a plastic container on his head and ignited it.
Aerial television footage showed white smoke coming from the train, as it sat stationary on a stretch of track surrounded by firefighters. The injured woman, who has not been named, was found collapsed at the opposite end of the same carriage near the vestibule, prompting a passenger to push the emergency stop button.
The fire erupted at around 11.30 am (02.30 GMT) when the train was about 70km (45 miles) from the capital. Passengers quoted by Japanese media said they heard what sounded like an explosion coming from a nearby toilet moments earlier, according to NHK.
An official at JR Tokai, the central Japan railway agency, said the train stopped after the emergency button was pushed and the passenger was then discovered. “We received information indicating that a fire broke out near a toilet and two people were in cardiopulmonary arrest,” a spokesman for Odawara fire department said shortly before the male passenger was pronounced dead.
Broadcasters said passengers were evacuated through the fourth car. “Other passengers were also injured,” he said, adding that two were in a serious condition.
Japan’s ultra-efficient Shinkansen train network connects cities along the length and breadth of the country. Police said all of the injured among the 1,000 passengers on the train had been removed via the fourth carriage.
Despite the huge volume of passengers it serves, the network operates with an enviable punctuality rate. It also has an unparalleled safety record, with no one ever having been killed in a crash in its half-century of service. Three hours after the incident, the train slowly continued its journey to Odawara station, where TV crews crowded the platform trying to interview passengers.
More details to follow. Japan’s ultra-efficient shinkansen rail network connects cities along the length and breadth of the country.
The network has an enviable punctuality rate and an unparalleled safety record, with no one ever having been killed due to a derailment or collision since it went into service in 1964, just days before Tokyo hosted the summer Olympics.
The first service – called the Tokaido - connected Tokyo and the western city of Osaka, about 500km away.
An average of more than 400,000 passengers use the Tokaido service daily, travelling at speeds of up to 285km per hour, with more 300 trains running in both directions each day.
By the time the shinkansen marked its 50th anniversary last year, the Tokyo-Osaka line had carried a total of 5.6 billion passengers, with trains travelling a cumulative 2bn kilometres, enough to circle the globe 50,000 times.