Police searched a Chiba bus company and the home of its president on Monday following a shocking crash in Gunma Prefecture that has been termed the deadliest single-vehicle highway accident in Japanese history.
Bus company Rikuentai, based in Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, and the home of Rikuentai President Yumihide Haryu, 55, were searched on suspicion of negligent driving resulting in death and injury, the police said. Haryu's home is on the firm's premises.
The bus, which left Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, for Tokyo Disneyland at around 10 p.m. on Saturday, the first day of the Golden Week holidays, was cruising along the Kanetsu Expressway in Fujioka when it ran into the leading edge of a 3-meter-high sound-suppression wall at 4:40 a.m., police said. The wall impaled the bus and nearly sliced it in half, ripping through its left side.