Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
A boy and a girl, both aged 16, were hit and killed by a train in Nabeshima, Saga Prefecture, on Monday night in what police believe was a joint suicide.
According to police and Kyushu Railway Co (JR Kyushu), the incident occurred at around 8:55 p.m. on a crossing about 400 meters east of JR Nabeshima Station on the JR Nagasaki Main Line, Fuji TV reported.
The alarm at the crossing was working and the automatic crossing gate had been lowered. The train driver said he saw two people go under the crossing gate and walk onto the tracks and then stand with their backs to the train. Despite hitting the emergency brake, the driver was unable to stop the train in time.
Police said the boy was confirmed dead at the scene. The girl was taken to hospital where she died shortly after arrival. Both students had been at school that day, police said.
None of the 70 passengers on the train were injured. Due to the accident, services along the inbound and outbound routes were temporarily suspended and affected roughly 1,800 commuters.
© Japan Today
12 Comments
Login to comment
Do the hustle
Why are so many Japanese teenagers killing themselves? And, why do they choose such a messy way of doing it? It must be the education system driving these kids to it. High school is a 7 days and nights affair with sports clubs and juku. These kids have no life, only school! The government set an overtime limit of 100 hours per month for workers. However, high s hook kids are doing in excess of 120 hours overtime per month and it’s killing them, literally.
simon g
New Zealand sadly leads the world in youth suicide but no matter, it's a tragedy anywhere.
Do the hustle
Australia used to have a very high rural youth suicide rate. However, the year after the gun buy-back the rural youth suicide rate dropped by 70%. This statistic means nothing to Japan. The kids that are jumping in front of trains are city kids, not rural kids. One can understand why rural kids become dejected and depressed, but city kids should have it all. However, the rigors oh Japanese high school life leaves them depressed and bullied and they can see no way out.
Concerned Citizen
Terribly sad.
Alexandre T. Ishii
Please don't say it's in saga. My wife is from there and surely she'll be very grief of that...
mmwkdw
Teenagers are so misunderstood these days, just as in days gone by.
Being a Parent is fraught with difficulties of where to draw the line between enforcement and guidance since both can be seen as being draconian, and with with none - unless you're fed from a Golden spoon - you're heading towards a potential demise.
I watched a Chinese Mother's grief immediately after a heated argument with her teenage son over studies following which he lept out of their car and jumped over the side of the multistory freeway that they were upon - her anguish (captured upon another Drivers dashcam) at seeing his body below was just something that's stuck in my mind, and troubles me over just how much to push or not to push. The same could be said towards these two 16 year olds - were they siblings, were they lovers but being torn apart by family pressures, what's right, what's wrong ? How do you even guage whether a Child is potentially suicidal ? And by over-thinking/reacting are you making a situation even worse ?
I think we're all faced with a lot of the above. There's also loads of books dealing with matters concerning Teenagers, but when you read them you soon realize that every situation is unique. We should try not to build hard walls but have open and frank discussions - even if they're not listened to. And finally we should accept failure , not through fault of our own inactivity, but failure happens - it's fate sometimes, and its how we deal with that failure that shapes our future lives.
Elmer Fudd
simon g. “New Zealand sadly leads the world in youth suicide but no matter, it's a tragedy anywhere.”
Thats mainly due to the huge number of Maori and Islander teens killing themselves.
simon g
Not really. High across all race and geographical groupings.
maxjapank
If you work at a school, be sure to welcome each and every student with warm smile. Make them know that you are happy to be with them. And at the end of the day, be sure to send them off with a warm goodbye. Some students come to school with only negative thoughts from home only to be greeted with negative comments from teachers. We must break the cycle.
sir_bentley28
Ahem.....um......fact check
https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
Do some research. And that's just in 'murica!
Wesley
In cases like these, the authorities should look at their cellphone messages, chats, etc to see if they can find out WHAT caused them to take their own lives....and then take steps to prevent further such tragedies.
My condolences to the parents.
wanderlust
Hope the driver is OK too. In the UK, a train driver who experienced a person jumping in front of their train, got depressed and killed himself four months later, despite support from the railway company.