Four people die after contact with express train at Shin-Kanuma Station on the Tobu Nikko Line

At around 10:45 a.m. on the 20th, four male workers in their 50s and 60s came into contact with the Tobu Nikko to Asakusa limited express train Spacia According to Tobu Railway, the four people were weeding near the tracks under the platform. Prefectural police are investigating the situation in detail.

According to prefectural police, the four people are Kazuyoshi Ishikawa (67) from Utsunomiya City, Toshihiko Watanabe (65) from Utsunomiya City, Shigenobu Oge (53) from Nikko City, and Kazuya Sato (54) from Nikko City.

Takao Suzuki, general manager of Tobu Railway's railway headquarters, and others held a press conference in Tokyo that afternoon. ``I sincerely and deeply apologize to the bereaved family,'' he said, and bowed his head, ``I want to take thorough measures to prevent a recurrence so that a serious accident never happens again.''

According to the company, the four people work for a contracting company. A total of 10 people were working on the accident, and the four who died were near the railroad tracks under the platform spraying herbicides. A train watchman was stationed about 80 meters away, and his role was to signal to the workers that the train was approaching, and also to signal the driver with a flag that the evacuation was complete. The driver of the express train said, ``I sounded the horn after seeing the signal from the watchman.''

A watchman was scheduled to be stationed about 300 meters in front of the station to relay the train's approach, but it was said that they were unable to communicate with the train watchman, and Tobu officials said they were ``confirming the situation.''

There were no injuries to the approximately 50 passengers.

On the same day, the Japan Transport Safety Board dispatched three railway accident investigators to the scene.

Due to the accident, service was temporarily suspended on the up and down lines between Shin-Tochigi and Shimo-Imaichi, affecting approximately 2,600 people.