1 dead, 22 injured after pileup in highway tunnel near Tokyo

YOKOHAMA. KAZINFORM - A bus driver died and 22 people were taken to hospital after a multiple-vehicle crash in a highway tunnel near Tokyo, police and firefighters said Wednesday, Kyodo reports.

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The accident occurred at around 11 p.m. Tuesday after a truck caught fire while traveling on the Bay Shore Route of the Metropolitan Expressway in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture.

With smoke from the burning truck limiting visibility in the tunnel, over 10 vehicles including a highway bus were involved in the pileup.

Yoshinori Nakai, the 50-year-old bus driver, died in the accident, while the driver of the burning truck managed to escape the vehicle and was safe, police said.

The bus had been heading toward Chiba Prefecture from Yokohama. It collided with a separate truck in the pileup.

The pileup occurred several hundred meters from the entrance of the six-lane undersea tunnel.