TOKYO -- A passenger believed to be in his 60s, who walked along the railroad tracks and went missing after a train on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line stopped due to an abnormal sound on Dec. 25, has been found alive.

The Kagayaki No. 511 bullet train halted after detecting a strange noise between Itoigawa Station in Niigata Prefecture and Kurobe-Unazukionsen Station in Toyama Prefecture at around 6:20 p.m.

According to West Japan Railway Co. (JR West), the train driver noticed the male passenger walking along the railroad tracks immediately after the bullet train stopped. As the man went missing, Toyama Prefectural Police and JR West began searching for him. He was found alive on the tracks about 7 kilometers from where the bullet train had stopped, at around 8:10 p.m. on the same day.

Since the door of car No. 10 was open, the man may have operated the emergency handle or other mechanisms to open it. There were roughly 330 passengers on board the train.

Due to this incident, train operations between Nagano and Toyama stations on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line were suspended, and 12 trains were delayed by up to 2 hours and 40 minutes, affecting some 6,000 passengers.

(Japanese original by Ryo Watanabe, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)