Power outage halts Tokyo commuter train lines, disrupting thousands

A ‍railway power outage in Tokyo disrupted the morning ⁠commute for thousands on Friday as two main lines with some of the world's busiest ‌stations ‌were halted after reports of a fire.

Trains on East ‌Japan Railway's Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines were halted in all directions with no timetable for resumption, the railway said.

A fire was reported on the tracks near Tamachi Station, where both ‌lines stop, ‍shortly before 8 a.m. (2300 ‍GMT on Thursday), public broadcaster NHK said. ‌Flames were coming from a transformer in the track area, and the fire was nearly extinguished about 30 minutes later, NHK said.


Passengers were seen disembarking from a Keihin-Tohoku ‍train stranded between stations and walking along the tracks to evacuate, ‍assisted by ⁠firefighters ⁠and railway staff, in footage broadcast by the NTV network.

The Yamanote Line passes through stations including Shinjuku, which handles about 3.5 million passengers daily. The Keihin-Tohoku Line serves major hubs such as Tokyo and Yokohama.