This January, two Chinese female tourists were struck and killed by a Sanyo Electric Railway train in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Nearly 11 months later, the families of the deceased have officially filed a lawsuit against the Sanyo Electric Railway company and the train driver, alleging that the crossing warnings were only displayed in Japanese, which caused the two women to mistake the dangerous area beside the tracks as a 'waiting area', leading to an irreversible tragedy. They are seeking 139 million yen (approximately 3.67 million Malaysian ringgit) in compensation.
According to Japanese media reports, the accident occurred at 3:50 p.m. on January 9 this year. Zhang Xinqia, 23, and Yang Jingwen, 24, were waiting near a Sanyo Electric Railway crossing in Tarumi Ward, Kobe, and apparently stood in the wrong place, resulting in being hit head-on by an oncoming train. A male witness immediately called the police, but one of the women died at the scene, while the other was declared dead after being rushed to the hospital.
The train involved was an ordinary train running from Hankyu Kobe Sannomiya to Sanyo Himeji. The train conductor reported that the two women were obscured by a utility pole, so he did not notice that they were inside the crossing as the train approached from a distance, which led to the accident.
Preliminary police investigations suggested that the two women were originally intending to cross the railway to the other side, but the barrier came down, and as a result, they mistakenly waited in the dangerous inner area of the tracks.
The families of the two deceased filed the lawsuit on the 5th, claiming that the warning signs at the site were only in Japanese and not clear enough for foreign travelers. They suspect this caused the two women to mistakenly think the area was a 'waiting spot', and they criticized Sanyo Electric Railway for not taking necessary safety precautions despite the surge in tourists visiting Japan, and also claimed that the driver failed to fulfill his duty of care.
The families’ attorney pointed out that railway crossings are very rare in China, so the general public is not familiar with correct and safe crossing procedures. Sanyo Electric Railway responded that they have not yet received the official related documents, so they cannot comment.