Sendai: Five adults in their 20s to 40s and a boy, 5, were sent to hospital on Monday after a leak of an apparent chemical liquid on a Shinkansen high-speed train in northeastern Japan.

None of the six people are in life-threatening condition, investigative sources said.

Around noon, a passenger of the Hayabusa No. 52 train on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line made an emergency call to fire authorities, reporting a chemical liquid leak.

The phone call was made when the train heading for Tokyo Station from Shin-Aomori Station in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, arrived at Sendai Station of East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, in Miyagi Prefecture, south of Aomori.

Of the six people, four passengers including the boy suffered minor burns after being exposed to an apparent chemical liquid, according to sources including the Miyagi prefectural police department.

The other two, including a passenger, complained of feeling sick after inhaling smoke believed to have been generated from the liquid.

A man in his 40s, one of the four people who suffered burns, put liquid in a container in a black bag and brought it into the train. Investigators of the Miyagi police department are questioning the man, who is from a geological survey company in Tokyo, keeping in mind the possibility of professional negligence resulting in injury.

The bag was initially placed under the man’s seat. But as passengers around the man told him that the liquid was leaking, he brought the bag to the end section of the car.

As the liquid leaked on the aisle, the 5-year-old boy slipped and fell, and his parents are believed to have touched the liquid when caring for their son.

According to JR East, the emergency button on the Hayabusa No. 52 train was pressed around 11:55 a.m., when it was arriving at Sendai Station, and a crew member of the train found smoke rising from an area around the car No. 7.

Due to the incident, the operation of the Hayabusa No. 52 was canceled, and some other Tohoku Shinkansen trains suffered delays of up to about one hour between Morioka Station in Iwate Prefecture, located between Aomori and Miyagi prefectures, and Tokyo Station.

“The platform was cordoned off and was crowded with people,” said a woman, 39, who came to Sendai, the capital of Miyagi, from Aomori with her family to watch a professional baseball game.

“I was scared to think about the possibility that my child could be harmed, because there is no place to escape on a Shinkansen train,” she said.

JIJI Press