Many dead in Japan tunnel collapse

JAPAN: Rescuers in Japan have confirmed at least five people died after being trapped inside their burning vehicle in a highway tunnel that collapsed on Sunday, a spokesman told AFP.

“A number of charred bodies were confirmed inside” a vehicle, said a spokesman for Yamanashi Prefectural Police.

A fire department spokesman later confirmed there were at least three bodies.

But, he added, it may take a while for rescue workers to remove them and find others who were trapped inside.

“We are going into the tunnel and clearing debris. There is no telling as to when we can actually pull the individuals out,” he told AFP.

The discovery of burned corpses was reported as police officers, a local professor and highway engineers surveyed the extent of the collapse inside the tunnel, a fire service spokesman said. The search-and-rescue operation, which had been suspended because of the risk of another collapse, was back on by late afternoon.

Two vehicles were crushed in the original collapse and one other was set ablaze when large concrete ceiling panels fell in inside one of Japan’s longest motorway tunnels at nearly five kilometres long. A comprehensive rescue effort was launched but more than five hours after the incident, workers pulled out of the tunnel because of concerns that more of the roof might collapse, a fire official told AFP.

The cave-in happened on Tokyo-bound lanes of the Sasago tunnel on the Chuo Expressway, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital, an official at the expressway traffic police said.

“Concrete ceiling panels, 20 centimetres (8 inches) thick, collapsed over 50-60 metres (yards).”

AFP