Visually Impaired man falls on to tracks at JR Nippori Station, killed by train

Written with extracts translated from TV Asahi

January 11th 2020

In the early morning of January 11, a 53-year-old visually impaired man fell off his platform at JR Nippori Station in Arakawa-ku, Tokyo, and was killed by a train.

At around 1:00 am, a train station employee reported at Nippori Station on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line that “a person had fallen on the tracks.” According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the last train bound for Akabane hit a 53-year-old man. The man was visually impaired and died on the spot. Immediately before this, a man walking on the platform with a white cane was witnessed falling on the track.

There were no safety barriers at the site where the crash occurred. The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the situation assuming man accidentally fell off the platform and was hit by a train.