Tokyo, 8 October, /AJMEDIA/
A powerful earthquake that struck the Tokyo area Thursday night, the strongest the Japanese capital has experienced in a decade, left 32 people injured and continued to disrupt train services the following morning, affecting about 368,000 passengers in total.
The temblor left many late-night train passengers stranded and caused commuter disruption Friday morning, with services on shinkansen bullet train and 16 local train lines canceled or delayed from late night Thursday to around 3 p.m. Friday, according to East Japan Railway Co.
Photo taken Oct. 8, 2021, from a Kyodo News helicopter shows a Nippori-Toneri Liner train (top) that derailed slightly in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward after a magnitude-5.9 earthquake jolted the Tokyo region the previous night. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo
The operator, also known as JR East, resumed train services Friday morning but many passengers were forced to wait at stations due to delays.
At JR Kawaguchi Station in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, JR East imposed entrance restrictions to avoid congestion, leaving many people lining up in front of the station.
“It has been very crowded since the start of today’s first train. The crowd spilled out of the station, while inside the ticket gates it was packed with people,” said a 77-year-old female worker at a station store.
The operation of the Nippori Toneri Liner, a driverless guideway transit system in Tokyo, remained suspended Friday morning after a train derailed in the capital’s Adachi Ward, one of the areas hit hardest by the temblor the previous night.
Three passengers on the liner fell and were injured after three cars derailed. Outside the liner’s Nippori Station, many people formed long queues as they tried to catch taxis and buses on Friday morning.
The Tokyo metropolitan government’s transportation bureau, the operator of the transit system, said it could take several days until services on the line resume. The Japan Transport Safety Board has dispatched officials to investigate the derailment.
People wait for taxis in front of Tokyo’s Nippori station on Oct. 8, 2021, on the morning after a magnitude-5.9 earthquake jolted the Tokyo region causing a Nippori-Toneri Liner train to derail slightly. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo
Among the 32 people hurt, two in Saitama Prefecture and one in Chiba Prefecture sustained severe injuries, according to a tally by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
The magnitude-5.9 earthquake, which struck the capital region at 10:41 p.m. Thursday, logged upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in parts of Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
It was the first time people in central Tokyo have experienced such an intense shake since the massive quake of March 11, 2011, which devastated northeastern Japan and triggered a tsunami and nuclear disaster.
One 28-year-old from Saitama Prefecture who was forced to stay overnight at Yokohama Station when trains were canceled said wearily on Friday morning, “I have to go to work now without having gone home.”
At JR Chiba Station, trains heading to Tokyo were delayed significantly Friday morning, causing a male commuter in his 50s to give up. “I will just switch to telework (today),” he said as he walked out of the station.
The earthquake also caused power outages, affecting about 250 houses in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward at one point, while water stoppages and leaks were reported in central Tokyo.
There were 28 cases of people being trapped in elevators in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures but all cases have been cleared, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said Friday.
Several hundred passengers were forced to evacuate from a train on the JR Tokaido Line, using escape ladders, in the early hours of Friday after being stranded on the stopped train for more than two hours, according to a Kyodo News reporter who was at the scene.