| Amagasaki rail crash JR福知山線脱線事故 |
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Aftermath of the Amagasaki rail crash |
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| Details | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date | 25 April 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Time | 09:19 (JST) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Amagasaki, Hyogo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country | Japan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rail line | Fukuchiyama Line | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operator | West Japan Railway Company | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Type of incident | Derailment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cause | Speeding | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trains | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Passengers | Approx 700 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deaths | 107 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Injuries | 562 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Amagasaki rail crash occurred on 25 April 2005 at 09:19 local time (00:19 UTC), just after the local rush hour. The Rapid Service (a seven-car commuter train) came off the tracks on the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) Fukuchiyama Line (JR Takarazuka Line) in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, near Osaka, just before Amagasaki Station on its way for Dōshisha-mae via the JR Tōzai Line and the Gakkentoshi Line, and the front two carriages rammed into an apartment building. The first carriage slid into the first floor parking garage and as a result took days to remove. Of the roughly 700 passengers (initial estimate was 580 passengers) on board at the time of the crash, 106 passengers, in addition to the driver, were killed and 562 others injured. Most passengers and bystanders have said that the train appeared to have been travelling too fast. The incident was Japan's most serious since the 1963 Yokohama rail crash in which two passenger trains collided with a derailed freight train, killing 162 people.
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Investigators have focused on speeding by the twenty-three-year-old driver, Ryūjirō Takami (who was among the dead), as being the most likely cause of the accident. It is claimed that he overshot the previous station on the line before the wreck, causing a ninety second delay. Investigators speculate that the driver may have been attempting to make up this lost time by increasing the train's speed beyond customary limits. Many reports from surviving passengers indicate that the train was travelling faster than normal. In mid-2004, the same driver had been reprimanded for overshooting a station by one hundred meters.
The Japanese culture is quite strict when it comes to punctuality, with commuters often depending on near-perfect timing on the part of trains to commute to and from work on time. This is because at stations (including the train's next scheduled stop, Amagasaki Station) trains meet on both sides of the same platform to allow people to transfer between express and local trains running on the same line. As a result, a small delay in one train can significantly cascade through the timetable due to the tightness of the schedule. Immediately after the rail crash occurred, some of the mass media pointed to the congested schedule of the Fukuchiyama Line as an indirect factor. In fact, cumulative changes over the previous three years had reduced the leeway in the train's schedule from 71 to 28 seconds over the 15 minutes between Takarazuka and Amagasaki stations.
Drivers face financial penalties for lateness as well as being forced into harsh and humiliating "Nikkin Kyoiku" retraining programs.[1] The final report concluded that the retraining system was the most probable cause of incident.[2]
The speed limit on the segment of track where the derailment happened was 70 km/h (43 mph). A data recorder in the rear of the train (the rear cars were quite new and equipped with many extra devices) later showed that the train was moving at 100 km/h (62 mph) at that point, but investigators estimate that the train would have had to be going approximately twice the speed limit (140 km/h (87 mph)) to spontaneously derail, which is faster than the carriages were capable of propelling themselves. At least one report has suggested investigators examined the possibility there were stones on the line.
Japanese building codes currently do not regulate the distance between train lines and residential buildings due to high confidence in the engineering of the rail system. Railway lines often pass close to residential buildings in metropolitan areas.
Amongst other things, the Ministry of Land and Transportation asked all railway companies to update their automatic stopping systems so that trains brake automatically to slow down as they approach sharp curves.
It is believed that a contributing factor in the accident was the JR West policy of schedule punctuality. As a result of this, Masataka Ide, JR West adviser who played a major role in enforcing the punctuality of the company's trains, announced that he would resign in June 2005 at the company's annual shareholder meeting, with the company's chairman and president resigning in August.
The section where the crash occurred, between Amagasaki and Takarazuka stations, was re-opened for service on June 19, 2005. The speed limits were reduced for the straight and curved rail sections around the accident site: formerly 120 km/h (straight zone) and 70 km/h (curved section), currently 95 km/h (straight section) and 60 km/h (curved section).
According to the investigations carried out by the Hyōgo Prefecture police, out of the 107 deaths, at least 43 (27 men, 16 women), including the driver, were in the first car, at least 45 (22 men, 23 women) were in the second car, and at least one was in the third car. This information was determined by questioning 519 of the approximately 550 injured passengers.
On December 26, 2005, Takeshi Kakiuchi officially resigned from the presidency of JR West in a move intended to take responsibility for the accident. Kakiuchi's successor was Masao Yamazaki, who previously served as the railway's vice president, based in Osaka. While Kakiuchi's resignation came a day after another serious accident on JR East, officials at the railway did not make any explicit connection between the recent accident and the resignation.
Although a number of senior officials resigned their posts with JR West, ostensibly to take responsibility for the accident, many were later given senior positions with affiliated companies.
A 2008 The Daily Yomiuri article stated that survivors of the disaster still faced physical and mental health issues.[3]
On July 8, 2009, West Japan Railway Co. President Masao Yamazaki was charged with negligence. On the same day, he announced at a press briefing in Osaka that he would resign, "so the company can operate normally." Yamazaki will remain a member of JR West's board.[4][5]
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