Aichi Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi)

       Seven young children are believed to have sustained minor injuries after a car drove into a day care group in central Japan's Aichi Prefecture on the morning of Dec. 9.

       A 74-year-old driver was conscious immediately after the accident, but later became ill and is in critical condition. Aichi Prefectural Police's Handa Police Station is investigating the details of the accident.

       At around 9:40 a.m., a person related to the municipal Ogawashinden day care center called the 119 emergency number, saying that "a car had rammed into a line of day care children" on a town road in Higashiura, Aichi Prefecture.

       According to police, three boys and seven girls aged 4 to 5 from the day care were rushed to the hospital, and seven of them are believed to have suffered minor injuries.

       Police and the Higashiura Municipal Government have told the Mainichi Shimbun that the accident occurred at an intersection without traffic lights. Thirty-eight children in a class for 4- and 5-year-olds were reportedly taking a walk to a nearby park, led by three day care workers, when the passenger car, which was about to make a left turn, crashed into them.

       After the accident, the driver, who lives in the same town, complained of feeling sick and vomited. After being taken to the hospital, he reportedly lost consciousness.

       Meanwhile, in the Shizuoka Prefecture city of Kikugawa, a light passenger car collided with a line of elementary school students on their way to school at around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 9. Five boys and girls in the first through sixth grades at the Kikugawa Municipal Rokugo Elementary School sustained bruises and other minor injuries, including an 8-year-old girl in the third grade who broke her right toe. The car fled the scene.

       Later that night, Genji Ikki, 81, a resident of the prefectural city of Iwata, was arrested on suspicion of causing injury while driving and leaving the scene of an accident.

       The scene is near a T-junction on a city road without a center line, which is used as a route to school. There are no traffic lights or sidewalks at the site. At the time of the accident, about 30 children were lined up, heading for the school about 300 meters to the south.

       (Japanese original by Ayaka Morita and Kenichiro Fuji, Nagoya News Center; and Rinnosuke Fukano, Shizuoka Bureau; and Koichi Fukuzawa, Hamamatsu Bureau)

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