Tuesday, April 26 2005 08:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Amagasaki, Japan: The death toll from Japan's worst train crash in over 40 years rose to 71 today (Apr 26, 2005) as rescuers worked through the night to reach passengers trapped in the wreckage, police said.

"We have confirmed the deaths of 71 people and injuries of 442," a police spokesman said after additional bodies were pulled out of the debris overnight in Amagasaki, 400 kilometres west of Tokyo.

At least three people were rescued alive early today, a fire department spokesman said.

Authorities suspected that the train's 23-year-old driver was speeding and failed to negotiate a corner, throwing four of the train's seven carriages from the tracks in Amagasaki, a working-class western town near Osaka and Kobe.

The train, which was carrying some 580 passengers in the morning rush hour, appeared to be speeding as the driver was running late after he missed a station and had to back up to let off passengers.

The remains of one carriage were strewn across the apartment building up to the third floor, with rescue crews racing to tear through the metal to find any survivors. Another carriage lay tilted on the ground beside it.

Seventy-one people died, said the police in Amagasaki, 400 kilometres west of Tokyo.

"Passengers who were standing were thrown away and passengers who were sitting were slammed onto the floor. It was just chaos," said Tsuneo Hara, an advertising company employee from Osaka, who was hospitalised for a leg injury.

"Some 10 people could not stand up and lay on the floor motionless. Female passengers were just screaming and crying," Hara said.

Relatives rushed between hospitals to look at lists for any clue as to whether their loved ones were dead or alive.

"My husband is still missing. I don't know what to do," said one victim.

A gymnasium was turned into a makeshift morgue as families - some stoic and others full of emotion - went in by twos and threes to see the bodies. Only 11 have so far been identified, a railway spokesman said.

Japan has one of the world's most extensive and safest train networks, transporting some 60 million people - or nearly half the nation's population - each day.

It was the deadliest tragedy since 1963 when a freight train collided with a truck in Yokohama near Tokyo and then was hit by two passenger trains from opposite directions. That accident killed 161 people.

"This is a horrible and serious disaster," Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa said as he visited the scene, ordering a "thorough investigation".

Photographs taken inside the train showed metal frames severed open by the force of the crash. Dozens of people were lying on the floor, with a few struggling to stand up and flee.

"I just didn't know what actually happened," said Etsuko Murakami, a 64-year-old housewife who broke her left leg.

"I was just scared and could not move. I thought I was going to die. It was the most fearful moment of my life," she said.