Particle で mystery

Japanese Language Grammar
1

So I’ve run across this sentence recently:

次の駅で事故がありました。

I’ve checked with google translate and it gives exactly the same result for the sentence:

There was an accident at the next station.

What I am puzzling about right now is why is it OK to use particle で here when the main verb is あります…
The all explanations I could find always say that you should never combine particle で and the verb あります …

My two theories right now are:

  1. で is used here as a topic marker.

  2. 事故があります is somehow considered as a phrase describing an action and thus indicating location with で …

Has anybody please got any inside into this matter?
And if possible maybe a link to some explanation of this type of grammar?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

どうもありがとうございます。

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There isn’t a hard rule that で can’t be used ある .

You can see Tofugu lists another example in their “selecting for activity/event location” rule

  • 学校で チャリティーイベントがある。

In these examples, で comes after the place 学校 (school) and tells us where you study, or where the charity event occurs. The second example is actually very similar to the earlier “there is a gym in the school” example, but here で is your choice because you are describing the place holding an event.

An “incident” is event-like enough to count also.

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やばい ! That was a lightning fast answer. Thanks for the tofugu link. That is exactly what I was looking for. Strangely nobody else is bothering to explain these nuances.

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The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar also mentions it; it’s generally pretty good at that kind of thing.

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