Amid questions about whether a train fire in central Tokyo on Sunday could have been avoided, police on Monday were investigating how fire spread to an Oda
Amid questions about whether a train fire in central Tokyo on Sunday could have been avoided, police on Monday were investigating how fire spread to an Odakyu Line train after it came to an emergency stop precariously close to a burning building alongside the tracks.
No one was hurt by the train fire between Sangubashi and Yoyogi-Hachiman stations on the Odawara Line in Shibuya Ward. Some 300 Odakyu Electric Railway Co. passengers were forced to evacuate and about 71,000 people were affected by the delays.
Some experts said the railway, police and firefighters botched their communications and should have told the driver about the fire before he even got near it, and that the train’s close proximity to the building might have been a significant factor.
The roof of the eight-car train, which was heading to Shinjuku Station, caught fire above the second carriage after it made an emergency stop next to a three-story building in Shibuya that was ablaze, the police and the railway said.
The building caught fire at about 4: 05 p.m., and a police officer pressed an emergency button at a rail crossing at 4: 11 p.m. at the request of firefighters who responded to it.
But when the officer hit the buzzer, it forced a train to automatically stop right next to the building, allowing flames to spread to its roof. The driver reportedly went outside the train to check the situation and noticed the fire on the building and decided to move the train. But he was unaware of the fire on the roof and stopped after about 120 meters after firefighters alerted him.
“It’s regrettable the system caused the train to stop near the site of the fire, ” a spokeswoman at Odakyu Electric Railway said by telephone on Monday.
