Part 2: What It Was Like Inside a Shinkansen on 3.11
March 11, 2011, 2:46 p.m. — a moment etched into Japan’s collective memory.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the northeastern coast of Honshu, unleashing devastation on an unprecedented scale. Tsunamis swallowed towns. Power plants failed. Panic spread across television screens. Yet while most people turned to news reports, one group sat in darkness, unaware of the disaster’s full scope: the passengers aboard the Tohoku Shinkansen.
At the precise moment of the quake, 27 Shinkansen trains were operating along the Tohoku line, some traveling at speeds exceeding 270 kilometers per hour. One of those trains carried a passenger who would later recall a moment of eerie stillness before the emergency brakes engaged. The train jolted and rapidly decelerated. It came to a stop inside a tunnel — not by design, but because that’s where it happened to be when the signal arrived.
The onboard lighting flickered but held, powered by emergency batteries. Air circulation continued briefly, and a calm voice from the conductor announced an emergency stop had been made. No one knew why. And then, the lights went out. The ventilation system fell silent. Passengers sat in pitch black, encased in a sealed metal capsule deep inside a tunnel. Smartphones had no signal. Emergency radios offered no news. People whispered theories, but no one could confirm anything.
“There was this growing sense of unease,” the passenger later recounted. “Not panic, but something colder — uncertainty. We didn’t know what had happened. We didn’t even know it was an earthquake. We just stopped.”
Several hours passed in the dark. Occasionally, the conductor walked through the cars with a flashlight, checking on passengers, offering updates as he received them — though there was little to say. The train’s crew had followed the protocol perfectly: halt immediately, keep everyone calm, and wait for further instructions. But with communication lines down and GPS unstable in the tunnel, information was scarce even for them.
Eventually, rescue teams arrived. Emergency responders entered the tunnel on foot, guiding passengers one by one along the narrow walkway that lined the tracks. The journey was slow and tense — walking through a tunnel that minutes before had been home to a 270 km/h machine. Outside, buses were waiting to shuttle passengers to shelters in nearby towns.
It was only then, once back above ground and within mobile signal range, that the full picture began to emerge. Smartphones buzzed to life. Messages and missed calls flooded in. News headlines, images of the tsunami, the nuclear accident — all of it came crashing in at once. “That’s when I realized it wasn’t just a technical fault,” the passenger said. “It was a national catastrophe.”
During the bus ride, one of the Shinkansen crew members — a conductor — quietly confirmed to passengers that the train had indeed been running at full speed when the emergency brake was triggered. His calm explanation, even in hindsight, brought a kind of reassurance: the system had worked. They were alive.
From an engineering perspective, the miracle was no accident. The Shinkansen’s automatic earthquake detection and braking system (UrEDAS) had functioned exactly as intended. The train’s low center of gravity, anti-derailment bogies, and elevated track structure ensured it remained stable, even during violent shaking.
But what made the difference wasn’t just technology. It was culture. Every JR East employee had trained for such a scenario. Conductors knew how to manage a powerless, claustrophobic trainload of anxious passengers. Rescue teams knew how to reach sealed tunnels. And most of all, the passengers — trusting, patient, orderly — allowed the system to do its job.
The Tohoku Shinkansen resumed service weeks later. Infrastructure was repaired. Technology was upgraded. But what stayed with those who were there wasn’t just the earthquake — it was the moment the train stopped, the lights died, and time stood still.
And how, despite everything, they walked out alive.