An axle on of the six cars of the Fujin Raijin II roller coaster broke Saturday causing the accident at Expoland in Osaka. The incident killed one and left twenty one others hurt. Osaka police official Kaoru Tanaka said a woman was killed. Fire department official Naokazu Norigami said 34 people were taken to hospitals. He said one person sustained a head injury but others were apparently not seriously hurt. The park was closed following the accident, according to park official Kazuhiro Shiba.

It’s so sad when something like this happens. Apparently the park was packed because it was the Children’s Day national holiday. The park shut down after the incident and to my knowledge has not reopened yet. No one likes to see someone hurt or killed in the pursuit of fun. We all love coasters for various reason, but you never expect to get hurt on them. It is doubtful that the coaster will ever open again give how superstitious the Japanese people are. You can read the full story here and this site has a few more detailed pictures of exactly what happened.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.