Japanese toddler survives train collision

TOKYO: A 15-month-old girl who toddled onto a railway crossing near her home at the foot of Mount Fuji survived with only minor injures after being struck by a train on Monday.

The conductor slammed on the brakes on seeing the toddler but the four-car train touched her just before coming to a halt at the crossing in Fuji Yoshida, some 90 kilometres west of Tokyo, police said.

"The train pushed her along the level crossing and dropped her into a pit between the rails," Fuji Yoshida police spokesman Kenichi Nagata said.

But the girl sustained only slight scratches on her head and limbs in the mid-morning accident. The crossing, some 20 metres from the baby's home, had no gate or alarm and her mother and grandmother were home when the toddler ventured outside.

"We are withholding the name of the toddler for fear that her family will be deluged with angry phone calls chiding them for not taking good care of the baby," Nagata said.