By YUNISU MAHAR/ Staff Writer
August 16, 2025 at 14:39 JST
Kyushu Shinkansen trains are lined up on an elevated track to avoid flooding in Kumamoto on Aug. 11. (Provided by a male company employee)
A photo of several Kyushu Shinkansen trains lined up on elevated track in an early morning “evacuation operation” during a heavy rain alert went viral on social media.
Precautionary steps were taken in Kumamoto Prefecture after the special heavy rain warning was issued on Aug. 11, reflecting lessons gained from a typhoon six years ago that submerged 10 Hokuriku Shinkansen trains.
The photo was taken from a hotel room in front of JR Kumamoto Station in Kumamoto’s Nishi Ward by a 30-year-old company employee on a trip.
Multiple trains were lined up at nearly equal intervals on the elevated tracks against a background of apartment complexes and other buildings.
The man took the photo through the window of his hotel room early on Aug. 11 after noticing that the bullet trains had stopped. He posted the image on X with the comment, “Wow, what a long line.”
By the morning of Aug. 13, the post had been viewed more than 10 million times.
The record rainfall raised fears of flooding.
Around 3 a.m. on Aug. 11, Kyushu Railway Co. (JR Kyushu) began moving 13 trains from the Kumamoto rolling stock depot in Minami Ward to the elevated tracks, using the approximately 10-kilometer stretch to Kumamoto Station for their placement. JR Kyushu began returning the trains to the depot in the afternoon.
The train depot is in an area where the flood depth was estimated to be 0.5 to 3.0 meters on hazard maps, which could have left the trains submerged.
The decision to move the bullet trains was in response to events in October 2019 when 10 Hokuriku Shinkansen trains were submerged due to Typhoon No. 19. At that time, the Nagano Shinkansen train depot of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) was flooded due to the overflow of the Chikumagawa river.
JR Kyushu has guidelines for such contingencies and conducts training once a year. This was the first real-time evacuation. None of the trains were damaged.
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