On Monday, one man in Tokyo not only saw a train being struck by lightning, he caught the frightening scene on film.
The Odakyu Electric Railway train was traveling from Izumi-Tamagawa Station en route to Noborito Station. Just as the train began traversing the Tamagawa River, the body of water that separates Tokyo from Kanagawa Prefecture, the train takes a direct hit from a bolt of lightning. The train itself is made of metal, but it didn’t help much that it was on a metallic railway bridge over a body of water.
The train was struck at approximately 7 p.m. and a man just happened to be filming the exact location of the strike, catching the entire incident on camera. If you take a look at the video, you can see flashes from distant lightning and hear thunder rumbling all around. Next, a train safely crosses the bridge as the lightning now moves on camera. Then, a second train approaches and the train takes a direct strike. Sparks can be seen near the front of the train as it slowly comes to a stop. According to reports from passengers, the train lost power and the inside of the carriages went dark. That same day, the Odakyu Electric Railway Company had to suspend operation of several trains due to lightning.
This footage is terrifying to watch; we can’t image how it must have felt (or sounded) from inside the train.
Take a look at the video below. Direct hit at 1:20.
Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- Increase in Lightning Observed Across Japan -- How a Train Delay Led to a Blind Lady Getting Yelled At -- New train carriages on Saikyo Line allow more sardines to be squeezed into the can
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30 Comments
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PeaceWarrior
Wow! That was really spectacular. Glad nobody was injured.
darknuts
Wow. Cool stuff like that never happens to me...
cleo
Erm... ask a passenger?
smartacus
cleo
How would the person taking this video of a moving train from kilometers away be able to dash to the nearest station and ask someone on the train what it felt like? Why would they even bother to do that, if they could?
smithinjapan
Not exactly the kind of thing you want to be congratulated for, I guess, but kudos on catching it on film! I was in a small house once that was directly hit and aside from it losing power, being scorched where it was hit, and the sound scaring the bejeezus out of us, everyone was safe. Then I had a friend who was in a barn that got hit and he nearly died from electrocution. You never know how it's going to work (aside from the obvious being under a tree or in the pool, etc.), so I'm glad no one was hurt.
Ady Creighton
Wow, great bit of footage
nath
The carriage acts as a Faraday cage, so there was absolutely nothing to worry about. What a sensationalist article.
Thunderbird2
WOW! O,O The shots of the lightning striking ground before the train were spectacular enough, but the train strike was terrifying. I can't imagine how frightening that must have been for the passengers.
cleo
Do you think the person taking the video is the same person who wrote the article? Can't be, because we're told the video was taken by a man in Tokyo, and the writer of the article appears to be female. I imagine that 'we' means Ms. Michelle Lynn Dinh and her colleagues at RocketNews24. People who work for a news service... people whose job it is to report on news...? If there are no leads as to what it felt and sounded like, not really much point in bringing it up, is there? And if it's worth bringing up, it's worth investigating....?
Moderator
Readers, the RocketNews24 writer is just commenting on the video which was circulated on YouTube two days after the incident. There is nothing to investigate.
Qamar
Okay..so in all my ignorance..isn't lightening supposed to hit the tallest thing? @@; my God that is terrifying. But is it safe ..I mean to ride a train during a storm; lightening wise? Due to an experience in my life, I am terribly scared of thunderstorms/lightening, so honestly I do my best to even avoid to go out during one and I think in that way I wouldn't like Japan at all @@ It seems there are too many thunderstorms O_O
Still, wow for catching this on film!
ohayo206
Faraday cage...exactly, similar thing happens to planes that get hit by lightning in storms. All in all still, a neat photo op.
Piotr Gierszewski
It would have been a horror for me if I was on this train. When I was a child I was stupid enough to change the voltage of a running computer power supply which resulted in me being showered by sparks (of course the device broke). It was quite traumatic to me, and now I am overly scared of being electrocuted. Perhaps it could be even called "electrophobia".
Elbuda Mexicano
Thanks to this lightning mess over on the Odaykyu, it screwed up my train on the SEIBU, so I got stuck waiting for over an hour and a half for a train that never came to Tokorozawa, Saitama and then I had to take other trains to finally get to Kokubunji on the Chuo line and the Seibu people gave us free tickets and I was able to take a Seibu bus which drops me off almost right in front of my house but it was terrible!! Thank the gods that no one was hurt on those Odakyu trains with all of that lightning!
cramp
ok cameraman and zeus are probably pallies...
Paul Arenson
What is a pallie? What does the cameraman and Zeus mean? Sorry, English has changed so much in the time I have been out of NY.
Dave Brouwer
He made a joke about Zeus striking the lightning right when he was filming... And pallies is just slang for pals/mates. Im not EFL but still...
Moderator
Back on topic please.
tokyo-star
Cool story, bro
gaijinfo
Now, if this guy wanted to be a REAL internet super star, he could have edited the video so right before the strike, he audibly calls forth the powers of Zeus to bring doom upon the people.
Serrano
I can understand why centuries ago before science developed enough to explain these things, people thought thunder and lightning was caused by an angry god.
Iowan
So, who's the railway planning on suing?
Disillusioned
I've had lightening strike within 4m of me twice in my life and although I had to change my jocks both times it is a special experience. The metal body and tracks of the train obviously grounded the lightening and saved a lot of injuries, but I bet it screwed up the electrics on the train.
Qamar
ohayo206 -thank you for explaining :)
Disillusioned- glad to hear I was not the only one!!! Once though, and I don't want to pass through it again, I still remember the sensations too well, and mom says I was 'around 5' years old. The lightening hit some meters away but I only remember a very very hot sensation and a bright light..then darkness whilst my ears kinda buzzed away when the sound came by. When I woke up again I was at the clinic. Dad had called me "thor" until he realized that his daughter freaks out at thunderstorms (to the point that I'd cross a main road uncaring about cars if lightening is close by..)
nandakandamanda
Some mixed spellings around here, so for clarity:
"Lightning" is what strikes from the heavens. ("Lightening" is simply the opposite of darkening.)
Incidentally the TV news did find and interview some of the passengers but it wasn't as exciting as the video clip above.
Scnadal.Lova
wooooow
BurakuminDes
Hope everyone was ok - but what great shots! I've been lucky enough to get a few lightning-strike shots in the past, but nothing this awesome!
gelendestrasse
Wow, I used to ride that line all the time. Glad nobody was hurt. Bet the motor controllers are all fried.
Moondog
Piotr Gierszewski wrote:
Interesting how similar events effect people differently. When I was a child my mother told me to never never ever stick a bobbie pin into a electric socket. So, naturally, as soon as she was gone, I did exactly that.
Bang! Sparks! Shock! Wow!
It scorched the socket and wall, blew a fuse, and gave me a buzz I could hardly believe. Rather than become an "electophobe," however, it was the beginning of a lifelong happy relationship with electricity. I was shocked several times more while building and fooling around with radios as a child and, while I didn't become an electrician or the like, I have spent my life tinkering with electrical devices.
I have been shocked by AC house current at least 50 times in my life and not even once was I killed. I even managed to get hit with lightning once while sitting in a hot spring in Colorado. I didn't die from that, either, as it apparently hit a different pool on the mountain side so I didn't get the full force. And, of course, it was DC so it didn't have that special "buzz" that you get from AC. It did, however, inspire me and the others in the pool to run naked down the hill to shelter. And to realize the truth of that old rule that swimming while it's raining is a bad idea. :-)