Japan police raid train operator

Police looking for clues to the cause of Japan's worst rail crash in over 40 years raided the offices of the train's operator yesterday as weeping relatives claimed the remains of many of the 73 confirmed dead.

As darkness fell more than 30 hours after the crash, rescue workers were still trying to reach about a dozen people trapped in the twisted wreckage. But there were no signs of life.

"Rescuers are proceeding in the hope that people may still be alive," a fire department official said. "The car is rather badly broken up, so it's difficult to say anything concrete."

Two women and a man were pulled alive from the mass of tangled metal from the train's front car earlier in the day.

Investigations were focusing on the speed at which the crowded train was travelling when it jumped the tracks on the outskirts of the western city of Osaka and smashed into an apartment building just after rush hour on Monday morning.

Media reports said police investigations had concluded the train may have been going 100 km per hour at the site of the accident, where the speed limit was 70 km per hour, but police would not confirm the reports.

Police investigating for possible professional negligence took away boxes of documents from the offices of West Japan Railway Co. (JR West).

JR West President Takeshi Kakiuchi and two other executives are likely to resign to take responsibility for the disaster, which also injured more than 440 people, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily reported.