A man was hit and killed by a train on the Sanyo Shinkansen line Thursday night as it passed through Aioi station in Hyogo Prefecture. Following the accident, the bullet train was delayed nearly two hours, affecting over 5,000 commuters, JR officials said Friday.
According to JR West, officials received a call from the train driver at approximately 9:45 p.m., stating that the train, headed to Hiroshima from Tokyo, had hit a man as it passed through Aioi station, TBS reported.
Police said the remains of the man were found on the platform after he was flung there by the impact of the collision.
Security cameras on the platform captured footage of a man who appeared to either fall or jump in front of the train.
© Japan Today
19 Comments
Login to comment
Jonathan Prin
If he falls on his own or jumps willingly, he killed himself in both cases. Again, why not have barriers everywhere.
RIP
stormcrow
Or was he pushed? Not unheard of in my area.
Peter Shaw
strange aioi station has central tracks for passing trains, he would have to cross at least one track to get to the middle track....
kimuzukashiiiii
What an awful attitude to have. No sympathy, no kindness, just selfishness.
While I agree with your sentiment , "dont kill yourself in a way like this, if you want to do it", I agree for different reasons. Not because "It ruins your trips", but because of the intense mental trauma it will cause to the driver of the train, and to all the people who happen to witness it.
My condolences to the family of the deceased. Who will have to pay an enormous fine, as well as dealing with their pain at losing a loved one.
Tohka
I thought not all shinkansens stopped at Aioi, so if the train was at speed, he was on the central tracks (trains that don't stop at said station go) when this happened.
Must have been one hell of a push...I don't think there's enough information in the article to clearly say how it happened.
I don't agree with any sort of fine going to the bereaved. That's just unnecessarily sadistic.
Raymond Chuang
If I remember correctly, only the Kodama all-stops train stop at Aioi Station. All other trains on that part of the line--Nozomi, Hikari, Mizuho and Sakura--pass this station at full speed.
As such, it must have taken a very determined effort by that person to get onto the center tracks at Aioi Station before being hit by that express train, sadly.
DaDude
Man, I don't know how I would cope after witnessing something like that.
Raymond Chuang
This is why there are plans at every Shinkansen Station to install platform door barriers--they've already done that in the Kanto region stations. The platform doors may provide enough resistance to stop the vast majority of people wanting to attempt suicide.
sensei258
The use of the words "the remains" and "flung" make me think the train was at speed when it hit the guy. Not a pretty picture. RIP
Thunderbird2
I see the usual lack of empathy in some posters is evident. No sympathy for the deceased's family, no concern for those who witnessed it, or the driver... just moaning about a delayed train ride. I still thjnk it's disgusting to make the family pay a fine. Hardly their fault.
nandakandamanda
Peter Shaw, true. See pic.
http://mune6041.exblog.jp/iv/detail/index.asp?s=14771126&i=201202/29/16/a0188016_2112480.jpg
paulinusa
"strange aioi station has central tracks for passing trains, he would have to cross at least one track to get to the middle track...."
"I thought not all shinkansens stopped at Aioi, so if the train was at speed, he was on the central tracks (trains that don't stop at said station go) when this happened."
Though I'm not familiar with this station, if this train was an express or limited express he would have definitely had to be on the track far from the platform. So it's doubtful it was an accident.
Taketomo
Poor guy. May he rise to Buddha. What an awful way to go and to have your death seen as an "inconvienance" by many travellers - it's a sad thing. Although I've been at Aioi station and it is not a great place to wait for a train , perhaps he was fed up.
fishy
j-news says he did not fall, he jumped into the track, and the camera footage showed that the man jumped. When someone wants to terminate his or her life, I guess they cannot afford to think about other people but to imagine the trauma that any of the witnesses will suffer for a very long time, the man was extremely selfish to go the way he did.. not sure what happened to the man to push him to the thought to jump into the bullet train track but there should have been a way out. So sad.
Frank Thornton
Yep. That'll do it to ya...
Disillusioned
So, which one is it? Did he jump or did he fall? My money is going on the former.
JoeBigs
Security cameras on the platform captured footage of a man who appeared to either fall or jump in front of the train.
I hate it when jumpers ruin my trips. If they want to take their own lives they should find betters ways of doing it.
JoeBigs
Sympathy for someone who wants to kill themselves?
If this guy jumped because he wasn't happy with his life he should have done it on his own time. But, instead he chose to be a selfish sob and cause others to be miserable while they waited.
A cowards way out is the easy way.
See, that's the problem, folks think that it will only cause problems for the driver, how about the thousands of other folks whose lives this selfish sob interrupted? What about them?
My condolences to the thousands of people whose lives that selfish sob interrupted. As for his family, they will have to deal with their own pains because this guy was too selfish to face whatever problems he was having.
Personal responsibility is lacking these days.
Frungy
I'm curious, under what circumstances would JR admit that it was their fault? I mean we see a lot of these sort of incidents and in every case the newspapers and JR all have no problem implying that it was the dead person's fault.
Was there even an investigation to see if there wasn't oil or something spilled on the platform? Did they even test the blood alcohol level?
I'm not saying it wasn't suicide, I'm just saying that the automatic assumption is always that it is the dead person's fault, and I have a problem with that kind of sloppy approach to someone dying, particularly when it saves JR billions in liability.