Japan train crash toll tops 100
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-28 20:47

The confirmed death toll in Japan's worst rail accident in 40 years topped 100 on Thursday and union leaders said pressure to make up lost time may have contributed to the tragedy.

Using power shovels and other heavy equipment, workers tore holes in a crushed carriage and extracted several bodies, bringing the official toll to 106. One body appeared to be that of the 23-year-old train driver.

By evening the search for victims was winding down. A fire official said no more bodies were visible in the front carriage of the train, which had been compressed to less than half of its original length of about 20 metres (66 feet) and embedded in the ground-floor car park of a nine-storey apartment building.

"Our job is to save lives, so basically you could say that we are now at the end of our search and rescue efforts," another fire department official said.

No survivors have been found since early on Tuesday.

Investigators have yet to conclude why the packed commuter train jumped the tracks on the outskirts of the western city of Osaka on Monday and smashed into the apartment complex, but excessive speed seems to have played a role.

The driver, who had 11 months' experience, had overshot the previous station by about 40 metres (130 feet), putting the train more than a minute behind schedule.

Media have said the pressure put on train drivers by operator West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) may have contributed to the accident, which also injured 458 people, many seriously.

Kenji Ito, an official at the Japan Confederation of Railway Workers Unions, said JR West was particularly harsh on employees responsible for train delays, giving them reprimands, cutting salaries and subjecting them to a re-education process that in some cases was tantamount to being pilloried.

The driver had also overshot a station by 100 metres (328 feet) last June and may have been worried that he would be punished again, union leaders said, noting that two sessions of re-education often meant demotion.

"We can definitely think that the driver may have put on too much speed to make up the delay," Osamu Yomono, vice president of the confederation, told a news conference.

"He'd already been through re-education once and I'm sure that he absolutely didn't want to do so again," Yomono said.

"In other words, the fear in his mind probably prevented him from making a rational decision."

SAFETY FIRST

Surveyors who inspected the apartment building on Wednesday said it was in no danger of collapsing but some residents opted to move into a nearby hotel at the expense of the railway company.

The Transport Ministry ordered JR West on Thursday to compile a plan to improve the safety of its operations, including the training of drivers, Kyodo news agency reported.

Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa also said the ministry was considering drawing up guidelines on speed limits and driver training.

JR West's top management, which is expected to resign to take responsibility for the crash, held a meeting with its union on Thursday, asking for cooperation to ensure safety.

JR West, which was completely privatised a year ago, has been trying to improve profitability by cutting costs, leading to speculation it may have cut corners on safety.

Union leaders asked the company not to sacrifice safety for efficiency.

"It is always better to put safety first, and I think everyone who's seen this terrible accident agrees," Yomono said.

The company acknowledged on Thursday that there had been other mishaps in its operations even after the tragedy, including more incidents of trains overshooting stations.

The automatic train stop system used in the area of the accident was of the oldest type and had no ability to apply automatic brakes if a passing train was going too fast.

The accident was the worst for Japan's heavily used rail network since 1963, when about 160 people were killed in a multiple train collision, and the most serious since Japan's rail network was privatised in 1987.

Japan's rail network transports about 21 billion people a year and the government is keen to assure the country that the system is safe.

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