600 Guardrails sabotaged to impale!

[mudwoman]

SENDAI (Kyodo) Sharp metal objects, some as long as 10 cm, have been found protruding from highway guardrails at about 600 locations in nine prefectures, central and prefectural government officials said Thursday.

News photo
A steel point was found Thursday, protruding from a guardrail along a prefectural road in Ishimaki, Miyagi Prefecture. MIYAGI PREFECTURAL GOVERNMENT PHOTO/KYODO

The sharp objects were found embedded in guardrails at about 450 points in six Tohoku region prefectures -- Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata and Fukushima -- and in Niigata and Ishikawa prefectures. The metal objects were also discovered at roughly 150 sites in Saitama Prefecture.

So far one injury has been reported. A 12-year-old boy suffered a scratched left leg Friday from a piece of metal in Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture.

The National Police Agency is puzzled and says it has no idea who might have planted the objects in the guardrails and why they are spread over such a wide area. Authorities have started removing them.

"And on what offense should these objects be investigated?" one senior NPA official said.

Saitama police are treating the case as one of assault.

"The areas (where the protrusions were found) are too extensive to simply define this as a prank," another NPA official said.

Satoshi Iwamura, land, infrastructure and transport vice minister, told a regular news conference in Tokyo it was too early to say whether the protruding objects are the result of a flaw in construction or were deliberately planted.

"We will inspect national roads across the country and keep in close contact with police," Iwamura said.

The transport ministry has told its regional bureaus to check guardrails in their areas.

Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures have reported the metal implants to their police departments.

"I sense that there was some purpose to this," a Miyagi police official said. "We will have all police stations check guardrails and go after anyone who may be suspected" of implanting the metal.

By Thursday afternoon, metal protrusions had been found at 195 locations along national roads managed by the Tohoku Regional Bureau and 19 sites along roads managed by the Hokuriku Regional Bureau. The sharp objects were also found at 232 places along roads under prefectural jurisdictions.

The Japan Times: June 3, 2005
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/get ... 0603a2.htm

[Malaria_Kidd]

mudwoman,

Kyoto it is. I know because nearly all the Royal Paulownia logs I transported for export here were destined for that city.

Some weird mind did that sabotage to the rails. Looks like they were driven into the space between the rails. A crazy fool did that hoping to tear body metal?

Odd story not seen on mainstream news so far.

MK;)

[mudwoman]

mudwoman,

Kyoto it is. I know because nearly all the Royal Paulownia logs I transported for export here were destined for that city.

Actually the city is Sendai. Kyodo is the news service. It's an attribution like we use in the US media, for instance, Washington (AP).

http://home.kyodo.co.jp/

What in the world are Royal Paulownia logs? My mind is blitzing out! LOL

[Malaria_Kidd]

mudwoman,

The Princess Tree; Royal Paulownia; & Paulownia Tomentosa is the latin scientific name.

The Japanese are about the only craftsmen that work the wood into fine furniture, musical instraments, and shoe soles.

$38.00 a board foot was paid once for some slowly grown logs in Virginia. I don't know, but that was probably a record price that was never in any news. Inside stuff.

Kyodo news service it is.

Weird News is everywhere.

MK

[mudwoman]

Wow, MK, pretty interesting. I would love to grow some here. It is a beautiful tree, and hardy in zones 5-9. Perfect for me.

[Malaria_Kidd]

mudwoman,

Yes, very colorful in the spring. Seed pods in the fall contain oh so many. Many probably grow behind these 'tampered with' guard rails. Japan has Paulownia tree farms, but the tight grain feature for the best lumber is not easy to attain.

I have two transplanted to each side of my front walk. They grew 10 feet the first year. The wood is very light weight and white, like White Ash

Location 5-9 ? You should put zone 5-9 in your spot under your username.

I-40 in East Tennessee has them growing over the guard rail. Huge leaves on the saplings. The biggest leaf on a tree in the US, but again non-native in origin.

Don Mattingly's high school in Evansville, Indiana has the largest one living in the US. A Kentucky state forester found that it was so.

You found a nice picture of the tree in Spring flower stage. It's listed in the Trees of North America.

What kind of weird one would hope to tear body metal on Japanese cars? Seems like a statement is being made with the pointed flat metal driven in the space between.

Aum? The old cult in Japan may have a loose member with a screw loose!:rolleyes:

MK