WAKAYAMA – The lead car of a four-car Nankai Electric Railway Co. express train derailed Monday morning in Koya, Wakayama Prefecture, due to a landslide, but no one was hurt, officials said.
The accident occurred between Kii Hosokawa and Kii Kamiya stations a little after 9:30 a.m. There were some 30 passengers and two crew members on the train, which was bound for Gokurakubashi Station from Nanba Station in Osaka, the Nankai officials said.
The train’s driver saw that the landslide had partially blocked the tracks ahead. He applied the brakes, but it was too late and the lead car ran over the debris, derailing in the process.
The accident took place in a mountainous area with limited line-of-sight distances. A 20-meter side of a hill along the tracks had given way.
The tracks had been clear when another train passed the same spot some 10 minutes earlier, the officials said.
According to local weather reports, some 20 mm of rain fell in the Mount Koya area Sunday, and it was also raining Monday morning.
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