Two dead in Japan bullet train suicide fire

Tokyo: Two passengers on a Japanese Shinkansen bullet train died after one doused himself in oil and set himself ablaze on Tuesday, media reports said.

The train, carrying about 1,000 passengers, made an emergency stop on its way from Tokyo to the western city of Osaka after smoke started to fill at least one carriage, fire department officials said.

A fire department official confirmed that one man was dead.

Kyodo News agency, quoting a witness, identified him as the man who had covered himself with oil and set fire to himself.

There was no immediate indication of any possible motive for the man’s actions.

A female passenger also died, NHK public TV said, while at least one more was in serious condition and several others suffered less serious injuries, fire department officials said.

Most passengers went to other carriages after smoke began to fill the car, reports said.

An official at JR Tokai (Central Japan Railway Company), which operates the train, said at least one person was found at the entrance of a carriage covered in flammable liquid.

Footage on TBS television showed a train carriage filled with smoke and passengers evacuating with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces. One clutched a baby to their chest.

“We have been informed that there was a passenger in a car on the train who covered him or herself with oil and set it on fire,” a spokesman for operator JR Central said.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily said a blast was heard from a toilet stall, with the emergency bell pressed soon afterward, which brought the train to a halt.

Media reported that the driver of the train found the still-burning body of a man after the emergency stop.

The train — a superfast Nozomi bullet train — was travelling from Tokyo towards Osaka, when the fire broke out near Odawara, southwest of Tokyo.

“We received information indicating that a fire broke out near a toilet and two people were in cardiopulmonary arrest,” a spokesman for Odawara Fire Department said.

“Other passengers were also injured,” he said, adding that two were in a serious condition.

TV Asahi said the second person found lying on the floor was a woman who had been overcome by smoke.

The network said the number of injured people was expected to rise as first responders treated more and more people suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation.

The fire erupted at around 11:30am (0230 GMT) when the train was about 70 kilometres (45 miles) from the capital.

Television pictures showed all the doors on the stationary train were open and passengers were being carried out on stretchers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set up a task force to respond to the incident, TV networks said.

Japan’s ultra-efficient shinkansen train network connects cities along the length and breadth of the country.

Despite the huge volume of passengers it serves, the network operates with an enviable punctuality rate. It also has an unparalleled safety record, with no one ever having been killed in a crash in its half century of service.

The first service connecting Tokyo and the western commercial hub of Osaka, some 500 kilometres away, began in 1964, as Japan prepared to host the Olympic Games.

An average of more than 400,000 passengers use the service daily, travelling at speeds of up to 285 kilometres per hour, with around 300 trains running in both directions each day.

When the system marked its 50th anniversary last year, the Tokyo-Osaka line had carried a total of 5.6 billion passengers, with trains travelling a cumulative 2 billion kilometres, enough to circle the globe 50,000 times.