Tokyo [Japan], December 27 : Amid heavy snowfall, a large-scale pileup involving more than 50 vehicles on an expressway in Japan's Gunma Prefecture has left at least two people dead and 26 others injured, Kyodo News reported.
The incident occurred on Friday evening, around 7:30 pm (local time) on the outbound carriageway of the Kan-etsu Expressway in Minakami, northwest of Tokyo.
Police said snowy conditions turned the road surface icy, causing several vehicles to skid out of control. This led to a chain-reaction crash spanning roughly 300 metres, according to Kyodo News.
Officials said the accident was triggered when a truck slammed into another truck that had stopped following an earlier single-vehicle crash.
The impact escalated rapidly, involving dozens of vehicles. At least 10 vehicles caught fire, and firefighters took more than seven hours to bring the blaze under control.
Police confirmed that a 77-year-old woman from Tokyo, who was seated in the rear of a car driven by her family members, was among those killed.
Another body was recovered from the driver's seat of a large truck.
Of the 26 injured, five were reported to be in serious condition, while 21 sustained minor injuries, Kyodo News reported.
In the aftermath, a section of the expressway was shut down as severely damaged vehicles, some burned beyond recognition, remained strewn across the outbound lanes.
At the time of the crash, motorists had reportedly been advised to restrict their speed to 50 kilometres per hour due to snowfall.
Recounting the chaos, a truck driver in his 60s said his vehicle struck the median after he attempted to avoid a car ahead.
He also said he heard multiple blasts during the collision. "The ice made it difficult for me to control the steering wheel," he said. "I feared for my life."
Authorities had issued a heavy snow warning late Friday, coinciding with the start of the year-end and New Year holidays across Japan.
Officials said the severe snowfall played a significant role in triggering the accident, adding that sections of the expressway remained closed for investigation and to clear the wreckage.
Meanwhile, several netizens expressed shock over the deadly pileup on the Kan-etsu Expressway, noting that Japan is widely regarded as having some of the safest road networks in the world.
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