A crowded Japanese commuter train derailed and slammed into an apartment building yesterday, killing at least 50 people and injuring hundreds in Japan’s worst train accident in more than 40 years. Several people were still trapped in the wreckage more than five hours after the accident, which left one car wrapped around the building’s first floor car park, as rescuers with stretchers and blankets struggled to reach survivors.

About 300 people were taken to hospital, a police spokesman said, adding that he did not know whether the injured included anyone from the apartment building, which was located just 6 metres (20 feet) from the train tracks.

Railway officials said the cause was not immediately apparent. Rescuers in hard hats clustered near the twisted remains of the front two cars, one of which had been crushed to less than half its normal width, using cutters and ropes to get inside.

Passenger Tatsuya Akashi, who had been on his way to work, told public broadcaster NHK that it felt as if the train speeded up as it went around a curve.

<B>About 580 passengers</B>

“I thought there were some strange swings, and then the train derailed. No one knew what happened and everyone kept screaming,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of blood on my clothes.” Witnesses said there were not enough stretchers so rescuers had to use train seats to carry out the injured. The seven-car train was carrying about 580 passengers. The accident was the worst in Japan since 1963 when about 160 people were killed in a multiple train collision near Yokohama, near Tokyo.

Operator West Japan Railway Co. said the cause of the derailment was under investigation but confirmed that the train had over-run the station at its previous stop. “We do not know yet the cause of the accident. The priority for now is to rescue the passengers,” West Japan Railway President Takeshi Kakiuchi told a news conference.

Company officials said the train’s driver was a 23-year-old man with 11 months experience. At a later news conference, they said the same driver had over-run a station last June.

Passengers said the train had been late leaving the previous station. “The train over-ran a stop at the previous station and so 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 running late.

“The train was moving so fast, we hit a turn and I didn’t think we’d make it,” he added. “Then the train derailed.” Japanese trains generally have a good safety record.

In Japan’s last major accident, in March 2000, five people were killed and 33 were hurt when a Tokyo subway train ripped away the side of a carriage of an oncoming train that had derailed in its path during rush hour. In May 1991, 42 people were killed and more than 600 injured in a crash in Shigaraki, western Japan.

<B>Issei KATO</B>