At least 50 killed in Japan train derailment
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-25 18:16

"We do not know yet the cause of the accident. The priority for now is to rescue the passengers," West Japan Railway President Takeshi Kakiuchi told a news conference.

Company officials said the train's driver was a 23-year-old man with 11 months experience. At a later news conference, they said the same driver had over-shot a station last June.

Rescue personnel work at the site of a derailed commuter train that smashed into an apartment building in Amagasaki, western Japan, April 25, 2005. [Reuters]

Passengers said the train had been late leaving the previous station and that it seemed to be travelling faster than usual.

Officials said the speed limit at the site of the accident was 70 km (44 miles) per hour.

Calculations showed that derailments were possible at a speed of 133 km per hour, they said, although they did not know how fast the train had been going.

"The train over-ran a stop at the previous station and so it backtracked," a visibly shaken man in his 20s, his face bloodied, told NHK. "So I guess the driver was in a hurry because the train was running late.

"The train was moving so fast, we hit a turn and I didn't think we'd make it," he added. "Then the train derailed."

Japanese trains generally have a good safety record.

In Japan's last major accident, in March 2000, five people were killed and 33 were hurt when a Tokyo subway train ripped away the side of a carriage of an oncoming train that had derailed in its path during rush hour.

In May 1991, 42 people were killed and more than 600 injured in a crash in Shigaraki, western Japan.

Shares in JR West closed down 3.6 percent in a slightly higher overall market.

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