Shinkansen service in eastern and central Japan resumed on Wednesday, about 20 hours after hundreds of Shinkansen flights to and from Tokyo were canceled the day before due to a power outage, affecting about 120,000 people.
According to JR East, all but two Shinkansen trains on the Tohoku, Joetsu, and Hokuriku lines are operating normally from this morning.
The company lost power around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and completed restoration work just after 4:30 a.m., with loose overhead wires hanging near the tracks of stopped Shinkansen cars on a route in Saitama Prefecture.
A photo taken at the ticket gate of JR Sendai Station in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture on the morning of January 24, 2024, shows a sign announcing that Shinkansen service will resume from the first train of the day. (Joint)
Three other Shinkansen trains that were running nearby also stopped at about the same time, but the train managed to reach Tokyo’s Ueno Station.
According to the company, approximately 280 Shinkansen services covering areas between Tokyo and other cities such as Sendai, Fukushima, Niigata and Nagano were canceled due to the incident. It also caused widespread disruption to lines connecting to the capital.
JR East announced Wednesday that the overhead wire may have come loose due to damage to a tension weight that has been in use for 38 years.
The company said it is investigating the cause of the damage and plans to carry out emergency visual inspections by January 31 at about 500 locations where the same weights are used.
It also said sections of the wires that lost tension had not been replaced with modern versions designed to be more durable and easier to maintain.
A company representative said, “The cause of the power outage is unknown, and we do not know whether the accident could have been prevented if the power lines had been replaced with new ones.”
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