1,500 Volts

Mrs. Teruyo Tokunaga, setting out on a shopping trip to Tokyo, watched idly as a crowded train pulled into a Yokohama station. Two workmen were fixing a sagging overhead electric power line. As the train passed underneath, the power line tangled with the train's trolley. There was a blinding, bluish-white flash as 1,500 volts crackled into the train. Flames licked swiftly over the first two of the five wooden coaches. Motorman Akira Nakamura braked sharply, shut off the power and jumped from the cab, tried frantically to force the doors of the coaches with his hands. Because the power was off, the electrically controlled doors would not budge. Within seconds both coaches were flaming coffins; only ten burned and bleeding passengers escaped through the windows. Soon a long parade of blackened corpses was being carried along the platform.

Mrs. Tokunaga, faint and trembling, went on about her business. That evening she went to her husband's drygoods store, was surprised to see the shutter closed. A clerk burst into tears when he saw her. Her husband had been in the train. With him died 103 other men & women, including three American soldiers.

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