AMAGASAKI, Japan, 26 April 2005 — At least 54 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 suspected that 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, 400 kilometers west of Tokyo.
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 off passengers.
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.
Fifty-four people died, 28 male and 26 female, said the police in Amagasaki.
At least four people were still alive inside the rubble with three of them conscious and drinking bottled water, said police, who put the injury toll at 417.
“Passengers who were standing were thrown away and passengers who were sitting were slammed onto the floor. It was just chaos,” said Tsuneo Hara, an advertising company employee from Osaka, who was hospitalized for a leg injury.
“Some 10 people could not stand up and lay on the floor motionless. Female passengers were just screaming and crying,” Hara said.
Relatives rushed between hospitals to look at lists for any clue as to whether their loved ones were dead or alive.
“My husband is still missing. I don’t know what to do,” said a sobbing Naoko Fukunishi after checking the lists at Amagasaki Central Hospital. “We just celebrated his 61st birthday yesterday.”
