Seventy-five passengers of a Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train were trapped inside the train for about four hours after it derailed during a powerful earthquake that struck late Wednesday night on the railroad's elevated viaduct between Fukushima and Shiroishi Zao stations.
It was the second time a Shinkansen train derailed with passengers on board. In 2004, a Joetsu Shinkansen train derailed in the Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Earthquake.
The Japan Transport Safety Board dispatched two railroad accident investigators to the site Thursday morning.
According to East Japan Railway Co., the Yamabiko 223 derailed at a point about 2 kilometers from Shiroishi Zao Station after passing Fukushima Station. The train had reportedly slowed to about 150 kph in preparation for a stop at Shiroishi Zao Station. Sixteen of the train's 17 cars derailed, with all wheels off the tracks for 14 of them.
According to passengers, an emergency earthquake alert went off on cell phones everywhere in the train, and the train rocked up and down at the moment the earthquake struck.
The train was stopped by emergency brakes, causing luggage on the overhead racks to fall toward the seats. "It's scary to imagine what would have happened if the luggage had hit a person," a 27-year-old company employee from Nantan, Kyoto Prefecture, said.
None of the 75 passengers and three train crew members were injured, but the power went out in the train immediately after the jolt. The air conditioning also stopped. A 22-year-old senior at a university in Kanagawa Prefecture said it was dark and very cold inside the train.
It was around 3:30 a.m. Thursday when it became possible for the passengers to get off the train. The passengers used a ladder placed at a door of the train to go down to the tracks. They then used a nearby maintenance stairway to descend from the viaduct to ground level, and headed for Sendai Station aboard two buses prepared by JR East.
Before boarding the bus, a 22-year-old college student from Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, said, "It was scary, but it was reassuring that the train crew was calm."
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