Friends of the Rail Forum

BBC 23 July 2011 Last updated at 15:38 GMT

China: Express train derails in Zhejiang province

A first-generation bullet train has derailed in eastern China, the country's official news agency Xinhua has said, killing at least 11 people and injuring another 89.

Two of the train's coaches fell off a bridge after derailing in Zhejiang province.

The train was travelling from Hangzhou to Wenzhou when it went off the rails at about 2030 (1230 GMT).

China is spending billions on constructing a high-speed rail network.

Xinhua said the train, numbered D3115, derailed at Shuangyu town in Wenzhou, and rescue workers were at the scene.

"D" trains are the first generation of bullet trains in China, with an average speed of just short of 100mph (160km/h).

Corruption fears

Xinhua said the capacity of each carriage was about 100, although the number of people on the train is not yet known.

Some reports on China's Twitter sites said that another train had been involved, although this has not been confirmed.

China National Radio quoted a Shanghai Railway Bureau official as saying a lightning strike was to blame.

Last month China inaugurated its Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link.

The 300 km/h (190mph) train halves the journey time to under five hours.

China is planning to roll out high-speed lines across the country.

But the project has come under fire for its high cost - the Beijing-Shanghai line cost 215bn yuan ($33bn; £21bn).

The BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing says there are also fears corruption has compromised safety in the network's construction.

China train crash kills 32

Another 200 taken to hospital following crash after train lost power due to lightning strike in Zhejiang province

* Cherry Wilson
* guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 July 2011 23.35 BST

At least 32 people have died after a high speed train crashed into a stalled train in China's eastern province of Zhejiang on Saturday, causing four carriages to fall off a bridge.

Another 200 people have been taken to hospital following the accident which occurred after the first train lost power due to a lightning strike and was then hit from the back by another bullet train following it, according to state television.

A preliminary investigation by the Zhejiang provincial government showed that four coaches of the moving train fell off the viaduct, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The cars plunged about 20-30 metres from the elevated section of track.

Several other carriages were derailed in the accident near Wenzhou, 860 miles south of Beijing. Both trains were headed for the coastal city of Fuzhou; one from Beijing, the other from Zhejiang's provincial capital, Hangzhou.

"The train suddenly shook violently, casting luggage all around," Xinhua quoted survivor Liu Hongtao as saying. "Passengers cried for help but no crew responded."

The total power failure rendered useless an electronic safety system designed to warn following trains of stalled trains on the tracks and automatically halt them before a collision can occur.

Railways minister Sheng Guangzu ordered an in-depth investigation of the accident.

China's government has spent billions of dollars improving the railway network of the world's most populous country and has said it plans to spend $120bn (£73bn) a year over several years on railway construction.

The vast network has been hit by a series of scandals and safety incidents over the past few months. Three railway officials have been investigated for corruption so far this year, and in February Liu Zhijun was sacked as railways minister for "serious disciplinary violations". He had spearheaded the investment drive into the rail sector over the last decade.

The flagship Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line has been plagued by power outages, leaving passengers stranded for hours on stuffy trains at least three times since it was opened earlier this month.

The link is the latest and most celebrated portion of a network the government hopes will cover over 28,000 miles by the end of 2015.

Toddler Found Alive In Rubble Of Train Crash

Sky News
12:35pm UK, Monday July 25, 2011

A toddler has been found alive in the wreckage of a train crash in China 21 hours after the high-speed collision that killed at least 36 people.

Doctors say the two-year-old girl is in intensive care in hospital and may need to have her left leg amputated, state media reported.

Xiang Weiyi was travelling with her parents on Saturday when their bullet train suddenly stopped and was ploughed into by a high-speed service following behind.

Her parents are presumed to have died in the collision which authorities confirmed had killed at least 36 people and injured 192 more.

Twelve of the wounded are reportedly in a critical condition in hospital.

But police fear the death toll will rise as search and rescue workers continue to scour the wreck on the outskirts of the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou for survivors.

The express train was travelling from the regional capital Hangzhou to Wenzhou when it apparently lost power and stopped on the tracks after being struck by lightning.

It was then hit by a second train following behind, sending four carriages ploughing off a bridge in what has been dubbed China's worst rail accident since 2008.

China has ordered an urgent overhaul of rail safety nationwide following the accident.

On Sunday, the government reacted by sacking head of the Shanghai railway bureau, his deputy and the bureau's Communist Party chief, the Railways Ministry said in a statement on its website.

The accident comes less than a month after the country opened a new high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai.

The new line, which cost more than £20bn to build, has been plagued with problems including delays and power outages.

Chinese anger over alleged cover-up of high-speed rail crash

Authorities accused of muzzling media coverage after crash in Zhejiang province kills at least 38 people and injures 192

* Tania Branigan in Beijing
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 July 2011 17.24 BST

Chinese authorities face growing public fury over the high-speed train crash that killed at least 38 people and injured 192, with the disposal of wreckage and attempts to control coverage of the incident prompting allegations of a cover-up.

The railways ministry has apologised for the collision in eastern Zhejiang province and announced an inquiry. Spokesman Wang Yongping added: "China's high-speed rail technology is up to date and up to standard, and we still have faith in it."

Internet users attacked the government's response to the disaster after authorities muzzled media coverage and urged reporters to focus on rescue efforts. "We have the right to know the truth!" wrote one microblogger called kangfu xiaodingdang. "That's our basic right!"

Leaked propaganda directives ordered journalists not to investigate the causes and footage emerged of bulldozers shovelling dirt over carriages.

Wang, the railways spokesman, said no one could or would bury the story. He said a colleague told him the wreckage was needed to fill in a muddy ditch to make rescue efforts easier.

But Hong Kong University's China Media Project said propaganda authorities have ordered media not to send reporters to the scene, not to report too frequently and not to link the story to high-speed rail development. "There must be no seeking after the causes [of the accident], rather, statements from authoritative departments must be followed," said one directive. Another ordered: "No calling into doubt, no development [of further issues], no speculation, and no dissemination [of such things] on personal microblogs!"

Officials also ordered more coverage of "extremely moving" stories, such as blood donations, and said the overall theme should be "great love in the face of great disaster".

Beijing sees high-speed rail as a matter of national prestige, highlighting China's development, but critics appear to see the disaster as symptomatic of the country's problems. Internet users repeatedly described the crash as a man-made, not a natural disaster, and blamed officials.

"When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash … none of us is exempt. China today is a train rushing through a lightning storm … we are all passengers," ran one of the most frequently forwarded comments on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo service.

The breakneck pace of the massive project had already caused safety concerns. In just a few years Beijing has constructed the world's largest high-speed network, with 10,500 miles completed or under construction.

"Overly rapid development has caused safety issues. This is the result of the irrational behaviour of the former leadership of the ministry of railways," said Professor Zhao Jian, a prominent critic of high-speed rail at Beijing Jiaotong University.

The former railways minister Liu Zhijun, one of the project's keenest champions, was sacked in February for "serious disciplinary violations" – a phrase usually indicating corruption allegations.

Six carriages were derailed and four of those plunged 20 to 30 metres from a viaduct in Saturday's crash, when a train stalled after being struck by lightning and was rammed by another one behind it. State media said the power failure knocked out an electronic safety system that should have alerted the second train to the problem.

Zhao said the trains should have been equipped with an automatic braking system and that dispatchers should also have been able to halt the second vehicle.

Chinese media had already highlighted the problem of lightning strikes after they halted several other trains earlier this month – including on the recently opened Beijing-Shanghai link.

The state-run English language Global Times newspaper said the accident should be "a bloody lesson for the entire railway industry in China", but said the crash should lead to "safer, not slower, railway transportation".

The Zhejiang crash involved the first-generation high-speed trains, launched four years ago, which have a top speed of 155 mph. The former railways minister said newer trains would travel at 217mph, but after his ousting that was cut to 186mph amid safety and financial concerns.

China's railway system has been regarded as having a generally good safety record, although 72 people died in 2008 when an express train from Beijing to Qingdao derailed.