Amagasaki, Japan – Ayumi Tanaka never worried about living within yards of the railway tracks – until a train slammed into her apartment building.
“If it happened once, it can happen again,” Tanaka said Wednesday of the rail disaster that killed at least 103 people and injured more than 450 right outside her living room window in western Japan.
A probe into possible negligence by operator West Japan Railway Co. has focused on the actions of the 23-year-old driver, his lack of experience and suspicions that the train was speeding before it derailed.
Rescuers at the crash site in Amagasaki, about 250 miles west of Tokyo, found at least 19 bodies Wednesday. They also found a body seated at the front of the train that is believed to be driver Ryujiro Takami, but that had not been confirmed, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Monday’s wreck was especially unsettling for Japan because the country prides itself – and depends – on its highly efficient, punctual rail system.
Japan’s first steam train ran in 1872 as a potent sign of the nation’s emerging modernity, and now 7.2 million people ride on some of the country’s 17,000 miles of track every day.
The railway system’s clocklike precision may have led residents to expect nothing less.
The train that crashed Monday was 90 seconds behind schedule – a significant delay in Japan and a headache for passengers traveling through Amagasaki on any one of three lines that use the same stretch of track.
“There’s a bottleneck here. If a train on one line is late, it delays the other two,” said Amagasaki resident Yayoi Hotta, 48.
West Japan Railway is facing intense scrutiny. Dozens of investigators scoured eight of the company’s offices Wednesday during a probe into possible professional negligence.
The seven-car train was packed with 580 passengers when it jumped the tracks near this Osaka suburb.
