2 killed in fire suicide on Japanese bullet train
Print Edition
A MAN set himself ablaze on board a moving bullet train in Japan yesterday, killing himself and a woman, in an unprecedented incident on a network with an enviable safety record.
Several other passengers were hurt after the man doused himself in flammable liquid and sparked a cigarette lighter at the front of the train as it hurtled through the countryside around 70 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.
Reports said a blast was heard from a toilet stall, filling the front carriage with choking white smoke, and bringing the train to an emergency stop as passengers rushed through carriages to get away.
Media reported that the driver of the Shinkansen train, which had more than 800 passengers on board, found the still-burning body of the man. The train’s top speed is 300km per hour but it was unclear how fast it was travelling at the time.
“We have been informed that there was a passenger in a car on the train who covered him or herself with oil and set it on fire,” a spokesman for operator JR Central said.
The train involved in the incident — a super-fast Nozomi bullet train — was travelling from Tokyo to Osaka when the blaze erupted near Odawara, southwest of the capital.
Footage from inside the train after the fire showed passengers blinking and coughing as they crawled along the aisle to evacuate. Several had soot-blackened faces and some seemed confused and upset. “In the very front of the first car, he emptied and sprinkled (liquid) from a plastic container ... then he poured it on his body and set it alight,” one man said.
An official at the local disaster prevention office said the man — said to be 71 years old — had died at the scene, while a woman, who was found at the opposite end of the carriage, was taken to hospital but later declared dead. He said three more men were in serious condition.
The motive behind the suicide was not immediately clear.
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