the yamanote line. it forced the suspension of services on some of the lines. workers fixed the problem, but service was suspended for more than nine hours. about 400,000 people were inconvenienced. >> for us, the perfect metro line. normally it's perfect. normally it's really right on time and very accurate. >> the accident doesn't allow us to go to our hotel. we took three hours to go to our hotel. >> reporter: company officials say they had noticed the poles leaning two days prior, but they didn't think the problem was urgent and decided to leave them until monday. a city official from the transport ministry instructed the company to thoroughly ensure the safety of its operations. he also told them to file a report on the cause of the collapse. >> translator: this travel might have caused a serious accident. we take it very seriously. >> reporter: the operator is now inspecting 50,000 spots where the metal poles are placed. they say service is back to normal, and they're pledging to do all they can to ensure something like this never happens again. chiaki ishikawa nhk world, tokyo. >>> japan's top government spokesperson says the results of sunday's local elections suggest voters support the prime ministe

this area here unfortunately, this area here and the mall where you have this transfer facing with metro and major bus lines in the city is the perfectcur. so i'm not surprised at the location. >> neill, stay with me on the phone, please sir. and athena jones, i understand we have your shot back up. i'm looking at a number of officers with batons and shields and a heck of a lot of smoke. >> reporter: we're unclear on what just happened. we saw a trash can that was burning. we thought maybe the protestors had thrown that in the air. now you can see this big, huge cloud of smoke across the street from us. we're seeing canisters. we don't know if they're smoke bombs. it doesn't seem there's tear gas in the air, but -- yeah. you can see this is a very fluid situation. we cannot tell what's going to happen next, but you can look and see -- [ sirens ] -- this tactical unit moving by exactly the vehicle some of the protestors were throwing things -- earlier. we don't know what is -- injured just now. i'm looking now at another officer who's down. who looks like he's being given assistance. bottom line brooke a very, very unstable situation,