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Rescuers carry out rescue operations after two carriages from a bullet train derailed and fell off a bridge in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province July 24, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Aly Song
By Fayen Wong
WENZHOU, China |
Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:29am EDT
WENZHOU, China (Reuters) - A Chinese railway research institute took responsibility on Thursday for a flaw in signaling equipment that led to a deadly accident and stoked widespread public anger and suspicion of the government's high-speed rail plans.
Premier Wen Jiabao visited the crash site near Wenzhou city in Zhejiang province and vowed a thorough and transparent investigation. He said an illness had prevented him visiting the scene earlier.
A high-speed train rammed into a stalled train late on Saturday killing 39 people. Soon after the crash, domestic media had blamed foreign technology.
China's ruling Communist Party leaders rarely give press conferences, and Wen's visit to the relatively prosperous commercial corner of China showed how worried the government is about public ire over official handling of the accident, which has sparked an uproar on the Internet and at least one protest.
Railway authorities said a signal that should have turned red after lighting hit the stalled train remained green, and rail staff then failed to see something was amiss, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The Beijing National Railway Research & Design Institute of Signals and Communications Co. Ltd., in a rare admission of responsibility for a disaster, issued an apology, acknowledging that it was the source of the deadly flaw.
The Institute would "face up to shouldering responsibility, and accept any punishment that is due, and will strictly undertake pursuing culpability of those responsible," Xinhua reported, citing an institute statement.
"Safety overrides all else, and high-speed rail safety is of even more overriding importance," said the Institute.
The admission of guilt came in the face of public ire about the accident that has escalated into angry accusations that officials had covered up facts and stifled media coverage to protect an ambitious rail expansion plan and the Communist Party's image of unruffled control.
Wen, who is aged 68 and will retire from late next year, said he could not visit the accident site earlier because he was sick in bed. He did not specify the nature of the illness that kept him hospitalized for 11 days.
"The doctor only today reluctantly allowed me to check out of hospital," said Wen, who looked a little worn but not seriously ill, making a rare public disclosure about the health of China's senior leaders.
He acknowledged the suspicion among the public about the crash and said authorities had to take such questions seriously.
"After the accident occurred, society and the public had many suspicions about the cause of the accident and the way it was handled," Wen said, standing in front of the bridge where the crash happened.
"I believe that we should earnestly listen to the public's views, treat them seriously and provide the public with a responsible explanation."
"NO SOFT-PEDALLING"
Earlier in the day, the government sought to address public anger by blaming the crash on faulty signals technology and train officials' failure to anticipate problems after lightning struck one of the trains.
"Whether there are problems with machinery and equipment, or administrative problems, or problems from the manufacturing, we will investigate them to the very bottom," said Wen.
"If the investigation turns up hidden corruption, we will also deal with this according to the law and there will not be any soft-pedaling."
Many members of the public suspected officials had covered up facts and restricted media coverage of the accident to protect an ambitious rail expansion plan and the Communist Party's image of unruffled control.
After Chinese medical officials and local governments were blamed for covering up the spread of the deadly SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.
Wen and President Hu Jintao vowed more open and accountable government After Chinese medical officials and local governments were blamed for covering up the spread of a deadly SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.
But those vows rub up against the government's own strict censorship and wariness of exposing failings and missteps to uncontrolled public opinion.
The train crash, in which nearly 200 people were injured, was China's worst rail accident since 2008.
On Wednesday, more than 100 relatives of passengers who were killed protested outside a railway station, angered by the lack of accountability over the incident, state media reported.
The Global Times, a tabloid owned by Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said the protesters demanded direct talks with officials from the Railways Ministry.
"They claimed that the bullet trains were built with advanced technology. How could lightning paralyze them so easily?" the newspaper quoted Wang Hui, whose husband died in the accident, as saying.
The newspaper showed photographs on its website of dozens of people with some holding a banner that said: "Disclose the true reason behind the July 23 train crash and respect the dignity of victims."
Efforts by the propaganda department to bar Chinese media from questioning official accounts of the accident fueled the anger and suspicion, especially about the death toll and rescue efforts.
The Railway Ministry is still investigating the cause of the accident, and has ordered a two-month safety review of railway operations.
(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Jim Bai, Chris Buckley, Sally Huang and Sabrina Mao; Editing by Ken Wills and Robert Birsel)
World
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Comments (3)
CommonSensLogic wrote:
A Japanese professor, who had apparently advised the Chinese on the bullet train, was interviewed yesterday by the Japanese news broadcast available on my local PBS station. He said that the Chinese design incorporated the most advanced aspects of the Japanese and the European bullet train designs. Therefore, at its best, it may be the best, but there’s a risk that the different aspects may not work well together. He also said that because the actual bullet train operators in China did not have significant experience, so he had advised them to include simulations in the training, but “apparently it did not work”. At the time, China had not released any news about the design flaw, but his viewpoints appear quite appropriate. In my mind, I am wondering how a simulation of lightning can be performed in the full range of possible scenarios. I guess a multitude of high voltages, for all possible duration of outage as well as intensity, must be applied, and then under a whole range of temperature, humidity. Then, all the appropriate responses to different ways of malfunction must be in the training — just to name a few thoughts. Not to mention backup electric generators, and manual operation backup, means of communication between nearby trains after a malfunction plus power outage.
Jul 27, 2011 12:24am EDT -- Report as abuse
jo5319 wrote:
China is a much bigger country than Japan. The number of miles of bullet train in China is currently already several times the length of all the Japanese bullet trains. When completed, the Chinese bullet train total mileage will be on the order of 10 times that of the total Japanese tracks, and longer than the bullet tracks of the rest of the world combined (including the Japanese tracks). They will be transporting many times more people, particularly during holidays between the rural areas and the cities during traditional family holidays, as an unprecedented number of people will be urbanized.
Calculating the mathematical probability of lighting striking twice, it will be more likely to be in China than anywhere else. However, with so many bullet trains running more frequently than the whole world combined, it won’t be that many years before the Chinese will have experienced just about every scenario, big or small, catastrophic or not.
Lightning striking twice would not be as unlikely in China as anywhere else. They had better be prepared.
Jul 27, 2011 12:54am EDT -- Report as abuse
PPlainTTruth wrote:
In Southern California near Los Angeles, just a few years back, a train engineer’s lapse of concentration while texting to a teenager caused a couple of dozens of deaths and some hundred more injured from the train crash. A couple years further back, also in S. California, a guy who wanted to commit suicide, parked his SUV across a train track, but changed his mind and left the SUV. As a result, the train that crashed into the SUV went on to hit two other trains, causing some ten deaths and many more injured. And all these trains were at snail speed compared to the bullet trains. What’s worse? To lose loved ones from senseless people, like texting train engineers or reckless coward attempting suicide, or inexperience and design flaws unveiled by the strike of lightning?
Jul 28, 2011 1:18am EDT -- Report as abuse
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