Friday's bus crash in Nagano Prefecture that killed 14 people and injured 26 others has exposed the pitfalls of small-scale bus tours, the number of which has spiked in recent years due to industry deregulation but whose safety standards are being called into question.
In the country's worst bus accident in decades, a vehicle carrying 41 people bound for a ski resort plunged off National Route 18 about 2 kilometers south of Karuizawa Station in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, in the early hours of Friday.
All of the 14 casualties aside from the bus's two drivers — 65-year-old Hiroshi Tsuchiya, who was driving at the time, and 57-year-old Keizo Katsuhara — were college students, local police said.