Police Question Lookouts over Tochigi Fatal Train Accident

Utsunomiya, Tochigi Pref., Aug. 21 (Jiji Press)--Police have carried out voluntary questioning of railway lookouts and others to determine the circumstances surrounding a fatal accident in which a limited express train struck workers at a station in Tochigi Prefecture, eastern Japan, on Thursday, it was learned Friday.

The Tochigi prefectural police are investigating the exact cause of the accident, with a view to possible charges of professional negligence resulting in death.

Meanwhile, the Japan Transport Safety Board's railway accident investigators heard from the driver and conductor of the limited express train operated by Tobu Railway Co. about the situation at the time of the accident and examined traces on the train that had hit the workers.

The accident happened around 10:45 a.m. Thursday at Shin-Kanuma Station on Tobu Railway's Nikko Line in the city of Kanuma. Four male workers in their 50s and 60s who were working to clear weeds near the tracks under the station platform died after being hit by the six-car Spacia X No.2 bound for Tokyo's Asakusa Station from Tobu-Nikko Station in Tochigi.

With the train driver reportedly believing that all workers near the tracks had finished evacuating the site when in fact they had not, authorities will examine whether there were any flaws in the safety management system, including coordination among the lookouts.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]