Japan orders inspection of 49 tunnel's after Sunday's accident

Japanese officials have ordered immediate inspection of all tunnels across the country after Sunday's accident which killed nine people when concrete ceiling slabs from the roof of a highway tunnel fell onto moving vehicles below.

The slabs fell on three vehicles in the 4.7-km long Sasago Tunnel around 80 km west of Tokyo. The tunnel, one of the many in the mountainous country is on a  highway linking the capital to central Japan. It opened in 1977 and is one of many in the mountainous country.

The transport ministry has ordered immediate inspections on 49 other tunnels around the country that are either on highways or roads managed by the central government and of similar construction.

Meanwhile, police and the highway operator Central Japan Expressway Co are carrying out investigations into the collapse of the concrete slabs in the tunnel. An inspection of the tunnel's roof turned up no clues as to the cause of the collapse, according to Satoshi Noguchi, a company official.

He added, an estimated 270 concrete slabs, each weighing 1.4 MT suspended from the arched roof of the tunnel fell over a stretch of about 110 metres.

The operator suspected a holding metal piece suspending the panels above the road had become aged. The panels, measuring about 5 metres by 1.2 metres, and 8 cm thick, were installed at the time of the construction in 1977.