Train collision in China kills many

April 28, 2008: (2030 hrs GMT) East China woke up to a bloodcurdling morning on Monday when two speeding trains collided in the Shandong Province of East China killing 66 passengers on board and injuring many.

The two trains, one zooming from Beijing to Qindao and the other from Yantai to Xuzhou, collided after the former skidded out of the track and bumped into the latter while taking a bend before Zibo city station, 70 km east of Jinan, the provincial capital. This comes as an unexpected jolt for a country moving on a fast track with the expansion of high-speed trains targeting a coverage of 50,000 kms by the year 2020.

Rescue operations are on a full swing, with medical workers and policemen from the neighboring cities Weifang and Jinan on their toe and with Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, head of the State Administration of Work Safety Wang Jun and Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun overseeing all activities in situ.

While a possibility for terrorist strike was ruled out by authorities, preliminary investigations confirmed that the mishap occurred due to human error. Ten wagons of the Qindao bound train tumbled into a dirt ditch after colliding and derailing the Xuzhou bound train. This increased the number of casualties, investigations reveal.

This is the second major accident on rails in the Shandong province this year, after the January train accident when 18 railway workers were ran over by a train while they were relocating the tracks.

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