Four workers in Japan have died after being struck by a train at Shin-Kanuma Station, north of Tokyo, authorities say.<\/p>\n
The collision happened around 10:46 local time (01:46 GMT) Thursday while the workers were spraying herbicide, said Tobu Railway, the operator of the line.<\/p>\n
Police are investigating if safety guidelines were followed when the accident happened, Tobu Railway officials told a press conference.<\/p>\n
Train service was suspended on the Tobu Nikko Line due to the accident, according to Tobu Railway.<\/p>\n
A passenger on the train told Japanese public broadcaster NHK that they heard a “strange noise” before the train made an emergency stop.<\/p>\n
He said passengers were stuck on the train for a while as staff announced that they were investigating the noise.<\/p>\n
Fatal train accidents are rare in Japan, which relies on a sprawling railway network.<\/p>\n
The train involved in Thursday’s incident was a limited express train, according to NHK. These are the second-fastest trains in Japan, after the Shinkansen or bullet train.<\/p>\n
The fatalities, who were in their 50s and 60s, were among a team of ten working at the site on Thursday, railway officials said.<\/p>\n
The team also included a supervisor and three lookouts tasked with alerting workers to incoming trains.<\/p>\n
The lookouts generally use whistles and microphones to alert the workers, while waving a yellow flag at the train driver.<\/p>\n
When asked repeatedly if anyone had been looking out for trains ahead of the accident, the officials did not give clear answers.<\/p>\n
A Tobu Railway representative told the BBC earlier that the “usual lookout system was operating as normal”.<\/p>\n
“When a train approaches, a lookout waves a flag and, once the driver acknowledges it, sounds the horn,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are currently investigating why the accident occurred despite this.”<\/p>\n
Tobu Railway general manager Takao Suzuki said the company offered “our deepest condolences to those who lost their lives and heartfelt apologies to their families”.<\/p>\n
“We also deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to all those involved and to our customers,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four workers in Japan have died after being struck by a train at Shin-Kanuma Station, north of Tokyo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5208,8,33,49688,17707,13847],"class_list":["post-77461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-bullet-train","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-railway-officials","tag-tobu-railway","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}