How Sad

Trains this evening were delayed big time, citing the cause as "Human-related Incident". Usually with your run-of-the-mill "human-related incident" trains are delayed at most an hour or so, but this evening as I tried to buy a ticket from the machine, they had stopped working — so that people wouldn't flood the platform.. it was THAT packed.

I took a very weird route home and decided to check the Japanese news networks for further details on why this evening's delay was so bad. I suspected that someone had got hit by a train, that it was a much more serious "human-related incident" than usual.

This "incident" is of particular significance to me because where it took place was at the station RIGHT NEXT TO MINE.

My roughly translated points from a news article:

• At around 5.25pm this evening, an unemployed 25 year old woman was killed by an express train heading north. Video camera footage shows the woman jumping from the platform into the path of the train, indicating that this was a suicide
• All train services heading in either direction were immediately suspended. Services resumed at around 7.15pm
• Trains experienced delays of up to 3.5 hours (!!)
• At Shibuya, this affected about 167,000 commuters returning home
• Having been stuck on a train for over an hour, 9 passengers fell ill and had to be taken to hospital via emergency services

I pass that station everyday. How grisly it will be to be on a train tomorrow morning, going past that station, wondering: "I wonder where she did it?"

I wonder how many others will be thinking the same thing.