TOKYO (Kyodo) -- All bullet train services on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line in northeast Japan were halted for around two hours on Monday after a person entered the tracks and was hit by a train, the operator said, days after the decoupling of cars on a train led to a disruption of services that still continues.

JR East said a person intruded onto the tracks in the morning, with police suspecting that the individual climbed over a fence to commit suicide. While local train services in Japan are sometimes affected by suicides, shinkansen services are rarely halted.

Some Tohoku Shinkansen services resumed after 2:30 p.m. Monday. Several train operations, however, remain halted after Thursday's decoupling of two separate trains that were meant to remain linked until splitting later in the journey.

JR East, the only operator that connects different types of train for a shinkansen service, suffered a similar incident in September 2024. It said it will suspend all such operations until the cause of the accident is determined, with no date fixed yet for normal operations resuming.