A bullet train in Japan came to a sudden halt on Wednesday after a meter-long snake climbed a power pole and short-circuited the electric supply.
The bizarre incident took place at around 5:25 pm between Maibara and Gifu-Hashima stations, The Guardian reported.
The outage disrupted the Tokaido Shinkansen route connecting Tokyo and Osaka. The power wasn’t fully restored until after 7 pm, so trains were delayed for more than an hour. The passengers were stuck on the train, reported The Guardian. According to passengers, the lights and air conditioning remained functional during the outage.
The Tokaido Shinkansen train line is one of the busiest in Japan. It connects three big cities: Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, with more than 370 trains carrying about 4.3 lakh people every day. These trains go up to 285 km per hour and because of this bullet speed, the journey from Tokyo to Osaka takes less than 2.5 hours.
The incident happened during Japan’s Golden Week consisting of a series of national holidays when people travel across the country to enjoy their vacations. One of the passengers told Kyodo News, “I use the Shinkansen several times a month, but this is the first time I have experienced suspensions due to a power outage.”
As Japan’s first high-speed train line, the Tokaido Shinkansen has carried almost 7 billion passengers since it began shortly before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. According to operator Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), it has an excellent safety record, with no accidents or injuries reported and trains arriving at their scheduled timings within an average of 1.6 minutes.
Even though it’s rare, there have been times when reptiles have caused delays on the Shinkansen. Last year in April, a 40-centimetre-long snake was found inside a carriage on the Nagoya-Tokyo route. The carriage was replaced when staff failed to locate the creature, causing a 17-minute delay.
Another incident took place in 2009 when a snake caused an electricity outage, halting trains between Tokyo and Fukushima.
