East Japan Railway Co. suspended all operations of its Keiyo Line between central Tokyo and the city of Chiba for nearly nine hours Thursday after a short circuit caused a small fire early in the morning that disrupted operations of a power transformer facility and a signal transmission room at Tokyo Station.
The Chiba branch of JR East said more than 170 train runs between Tokyo and Soga Station in Chiba Prefecture were halted until the operations resumed at 1:10 p.m., affecting some 95,000 people.
Urayasu Station on the Tozai subway line, located near the Keiyo Line's Shinurayasu Station, overflowed with commuters heading to work or school.
Fire alarms were activated at around 4:20 a.m. at the transformer facility in the second basement floor and the signal transmission room in the first basement of Tokyo Station.
The small fire was quickly extinguished but restoration work was hampered by gas from a fire retardant that filled the transformer facility and the signals room, the company said.
