Evacuation behaviors and rescue activities in railroad tunnel fire accidents

Tunnel fires are one type of railway accidents that is frequent and carries a high risk of casualties. The railway tunnel fire accident that caused the most number of casualties in Japan occurred 45 years ago in the Hokuriku... [ view full abstract ]

Tunnel fires are one type of railway accidents that is frequent and carries a high risk of casualties. The railway tunnel fire accident that caused the most number of casualties in Japan occurred 45 years ago in the Hokuriku tunnel in Fukui Prefecture. A fire suddenly broke out in a dining car when train No.501 of the Hokuriku Line, the "Express Kitaguni" was traveling through the Hokuriku tunnel while carrying approximately 760 passengers and 13 crew members at about 1 AM on November 6, 1972. This tunnel is approximately 13.9 km long. The train driver stopped the train about 5.3 kilometers from the tunnel entrance and struggled to put out the fire by using a fire extinguisher. Then, he decided that extinguishing the fire would be difficult and tried to escape from the tunnel by separating the rest of the train from the vehicle on fire. However, the overhead power-line ran out of power, and the train could not move. After the blackout, passengers started evacuating to the entrances of the tunnel. Then, simultaneously with the evacuation of passengers rescue activities started by relief trains that were sent from both entrances of the tunnel. However, it was difficult because of the heavy smoke caused by the fire. Thirty people were killed from being poisoned by toxic gasses such as carbon monoxide generated by the fire, and 714 people were injured. The aim of this research focusing on the Hokuriku tunnel accident was to develop effective guidance methods for evacuation in future tunnel fires, by analyzing the evacuation behaviors of passengers that acted as a large crowd. It is considered that there was a significant difference in the damage, which was influenced by the number of passengers and crew, the movement of smoke, and the operation of relief trains. Therefore, the passengers were classified into four groups. Moreover, survivor's testimonies are known to be indispensable for analyzing evacuation behavior. Therefore, we extracted testimonies on the evacuation behaviors of passengers from local newspapers, as well as from reports of the accident to obtain as many testimonies as possible. As a result, this study identified important issues related to evacuation procedures during the accident.