5 injured as car hit pedestrians at sidewalk in Tokyo

A car driven by an elderly man mounted a sidewalk in Tokyo's busy Shinjuku district on Wednesday and injured five pedestrians, local police said.

According to the police, the incident occurred at around 1:30 p.m. local time on a busy shopping street in Shinjuku.

The crash occurred around 100 meters east of JR Shinjuku Station, a major transportation hub in central Tokyo.

The police quoted the 79-year-old driver as saying that before he realized what was going on, he had already crashed his car.

"I had already crashed the car before I realized it," the driver said, adding that he was choking after drinking some tea.

A total of five pedestrians were injured in the incident, the police said, including a man in his 80s and a woman in her 20s who have both been descried as sustaining serious injuries.

Their injuries, however, are not deemed to be life-threatening, the police said.

The police also said the driver himself suffered minor injuries in the crash, as did his 76-year-old wife who was also in the car when it mounted the curb and hit the pedestrians.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)