Seventy die as Japanese commuter train derails and crashes into apartment block

A crowded Japanese commuter train hurtled into an apartment building, killing 71 people and injuring at least 440 in the country's deadliest rail accident in four decades.

A crowded Japanese commuter train hurtled into an apartment building, killing 71 people and injuring at least 440 in the country's deadliest rail accident in four decades.

Workers were struggling last night to rescue people trapped in the wreckage and twisted metal of five cars of the seven-car train in the first-floor car park of the building, 20ft from the tracks in a suburb of Osaka.

"At least four people are believed alive," a fire department spokesman said. "But the train is very badly crushed and it's hard to tell much more than that. We cannot deny others may be in there."

NHK television said one of the four was unconscious. The train was believed to be carrying 580 passengers.

Most of the dead were crushed in one carriage, which wrapped itself around the building. Japanese television showed live pictures of the attempts to rescue people, including the 23-year-old train-driver. His fate is unknown.

Officials said they did not know the cause of the crash, shortly after the morning rush hour. But passengers said the train was speeding and shaking unnaturally just before the impact.

Tatsuya Akashi, who had been on his way to work, said it felt as if the train had increased speed as it went around a curve. "I thought there were some strange swings, then the train derailed. No one knew what happened and everyone kept screaming."

A woman in her 20s told NHK: "There was no side to the car, and bleeding people were crawling out. I heard others screaming, 'It hurts, it hurts'."

Initial speculation on the cause of the crash focused on the driver who was relatively inexperienced, with just 11 months in the job. Passengers claimed he overshot the previous station and was forced to reverse, losing at least 90 seconds. Trains in Japan are run like clockwork and are seldom late: typhoons, earthquakes or a suicide on the line are about all that delay them. The driver was said to have overshot a station last year.

Satoru Sone, a professor at Kogakuin University, said the over-run might have indicated a problem with the brakes. "Then, when they tried to put on the emergency brakes, the wheels could have locked."

Officials said the speed limit at the site of the accident was 70km per hour. Calculations showed derailments were possible at a speed of 133 km per hour, they said, although they did not know how fast the train had been going.

"The train over-ran a stop at the previous station and it backtracked," a visibly shaken man in his 20s, his face bloodied, told NHK. "So I guess the driver was in a hurry because the train was late. It was moving so fast, we hit a turn and I didn't think we'd make it."

A middle-aged male passenger recalled: "The windows shattered and I had no idea what was happening. The train seemed to have derailed and was totally out of control. I thought I was a goner."

A reporter called Hiroshi Hisada who was travelling on the train said: "There was a loud bang, and I was sent flying .The next thing I knew the train was lying on its side and I could hear people inside the carriage saying, 'Help me'."

Japanese trains generally have a good safety record. But engineers who examined the track said they had found "grinding marks", normally found when the train has run over a stone.

Japanese media say the train had an older braking system, which may have been a factor.

It was the worst train accident in Japan since 1963, when 160 people were killed in a multiple train collision at Yokohama. In May 1991, 42 were killed and more than 600 hurt in a crash at Shigaraki.