MAEBASHI, Japan – A massive pile-up involving more than 67 vehicles on Dec 26 left two people dead and 26 others injured, five of them seriously, on an expressway in Gunma prefecture north-west of Tokyo, police said.
The pile-up occurred on the outbound lane of the Kan-etsu Expressway in Minakami at around 7.30pm after vehicles likely skidded on the icy surface as snow fell, according to the police.
Twenty vehicles caught fire, taking more than seven hours to extinguish.
The accident started as a truck crashed into another truck that was stopped on the road after a single-vehicle accident, leading to a chain of collisions over about 300m.
A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo, who was in the rear seat of a car, died, while a body was found in the driver’s seat of a large truck. Twenty-one people suffered minor injuries.
A section of the expressway was subsequently closed, with a row of badly damaged vehicles, some charred beyond recognition, clogging the outbound lane.
At that time, drivers had been instructed to slow to 50kmh owing to snow.
A heavy snow warning was issued for Minakami until 8.20pm on Dec 2, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
A driver in his 60s said his truck hit the median after swerving to avoid a car ahead of him. He also heard the sound of explosions four times behind him.
“The ice made it difficult for me to control the steering wheel,” he said. “I feared for my life.” KYODO NEWS
JapanAccidents – trafficWeather
AloJapan.com