{"id":27617,"date":"2019-01-01T08:22:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T08:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27617"},"modified":"2019-01-01T08:22:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T08:22:05","slug":"nine-hurt-as-car-rams-into-new-years-crowd-on-famed-tokyo-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27617","title":{"rendered":"Nine hurt as car rams into New Year&#8217;s crowd on famed Tokyo street"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"107\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">At least nine people have been injured, one seriously, when a driver deliberately ploughed his car into crowds celebrating New Year&#8217;s Eve along a famous street in Japan&#8217;s capital, Tokyo, according to police and media reports. <\/p>\n<p>With an &#8220;intent to murder&#8221;, a 21-year-old man drove a small vehicle into Takeshita Street in Tokyo&#8217;s fashion district of Harajuku at 10 minutes past midnight (15:10 GMT on Monday), a police spokesperson told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The driver, identified as <span>Kazuhiro Kusakabe,<\/span>\u00a0was arrested at the scene on suspicion of arrested murder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">According to national broadcaster NHK, he told police he was acting in &#8220;retribution for the death penalty&#8221; without giving more precise details.<\/p>\n<p>NHK footage showed a small box vehicle with a smashed front and paramedics carrying people on stretchers into ambulances.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a shock. Really scary, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; one bystander told NHK.<\/p>\n<p>Police immediately cordoned off the street, which was packed with people celebrating the arrival of 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One college student suffered serious injuries during the attack and was undergoing surgery, the police spokesperson told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>According to local media, Kusakabe hit a total of eight people and assaulted another on the street, which was closed to car traffic at the time as revellers crammed the area to celebrate the arrival of 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Takeshita Street is packed with small shops and is considered the centre of youth culture and fashion in Japan, attracting tens of thousands of international tourists every day.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike in other major cities, New Year in Tokyo is a relatively muted affair.<\/p>\n<p>There is no major fireworks display and no central point where revellers gather.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least nine people have been injured, one seriously, when a driver deliberately ploughed his car into crowds celebrating New Year&#8217;s Eve along a famous street in Japan&#8217;s capital, Tokyo, according to police and media reports. With an &#8220;intent to murder&#8221;, a 21-year-old man drove a small vehicle into Takeshita Street in Tokyo&#8217;s fashion district&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}