Eighty-one bullet trains on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line were delayed by up to two hours and 40 minutes, apparently after a "small animal" chewed through a signal cable, railway officials said.
Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), said that an automatic train control system between Shizuoka and Kakegawa stations kept displaying a stop signal from the predawn hours of Sept. 28.
Officials said the trouble was caused by damage to a signal output cable, which appeared to have been chewed by a small animal.
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )