BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pile-up involving at least 50 vehicles on a highway in central Japan has left two people dead and 26 injured, according to police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incident was caused by a crash between two trucks, sparking a chain reaction that set at least 10 vehicles on fire, local police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo was killed, and another body was discovered in the driver’s seat of a burnt-out truck. Five people were seriously injured and 21 suffered minor injuries, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a heavy snow warning in place at the time of the crash. Police believe icy surfaces likely caused the trucks to skid on the roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crash happened on the Kan-etsu Expressway in Minakami, Gunma prefecture, about 160km (100 miles) north-west of Tokyo, at about 19:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on 26 December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took about seven and a half hours to put out the fire, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the incident, a section of the highway was closed, with a long line of vehicles, many charred beyond recognition, stuck in the outbound lane. Work is under way to tow them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man in his 60s, whose vehicle was involved in the accident, told local media outlet NHK he heard a loud explosion from the far end of the pile-up and saw fire during the crash. The blaze then spread to other vehicles, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he was evacuated to a nearby toll gate with about 50 other people and spent the night in the hallway there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nexco, which operates the road, said checks were needed to see if the surface was damaged by the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company is warning travellers not to use the highway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: A pile-up involving at least 50 vehicles on a highway in central Japan has left two people dead and 26 injured, according to police. The incident was caused by a crash between two trucks, sparking a chain reaction that set at least 10 vehicles on fire, local police said. A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo was killed, and another body was discovered in the driver’s seat of a burnt-out truck. Five people were seriously injured and 21 suffered minor injuries, police said. There was a heavy snow warning in place at the time of the crash. Police believe icy surfaces… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53754,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53752\/revisions\/53754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}