The Telegraph UK
written by Malcolm Moore
Saturday July 23, 2011
Two Chinese bullet trains have collided, causing two carriages to fall 50ft from an elevated line and killing 16 passengeers in the first major accident on the country’s high-speed rail network.
The accident, just after 8.30pm in Shuangyu, close to the city of Wenzhou on China’s east coast, came after the first train lost power in a lightning strike and came to a halt.
According to the state news agency Xinhua, the D3115 train was then hit from behind by a second train, the D301 train. The two bullet trains, which run on electricity, are capable of hitting a top speed of 155mph.
The impact derailed the first four carriages of the D301 and sent two of them crashing from tracks that were built on concrete pillars around 50ft high.
A reporter from Zhejiang radio, on the scene of the accident, said one carriage had broken in half upon hitting the ground. The impact derailed the train and its third and fourth carriages fell from the side of the bridge.
Early reports said the death toll was 16, but each carriage was thought to have contained at least 100 people and there were fears that the total would rise.
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A passenger on the train, who sent a short message using Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging service, said: “About 8.35pm the carriage suddenly shot forward at high speed. Luckily I was sitting down.
"The train slid for five to six minutes and then the whole carriage went pitch black and listed to the left. After 10 minutes the train staff asked us to slowly exit the train. We walked out slowly on the muddy road by Xi’ao mountain.”
Other passengers using Sina Weibo appealed for help. One said: “I can see the carriages that fell. I would probably have died if I had been sitting in them.”
The stretch of line between Hangzhou and Fuzhou, on which the trains were running, was completed in 2009 and is one of the eight high-speed rail corridors that form the backbone of China’s network.
However, the line carries both passengers and freight, which limits the top speed of the trains, and the two trains were not from the vaunted third generation of trains that have been unveiled in the past year and can hit speeds of up to 220mph on special lines.
China’s ambitious high-speed rail network has come under sustained criticism in recent weeks for delays, safety concerns, high ticket prices and corruption. In June, China reduced the top speed of its high-speed trains, but insisted that they were safe.
The new Beijing to Shanghai link, which opened at the end of June, has been plagued by power cuts and delays, despite costing 220 billion yuan (£21 billion).
In February, Liu Zhijun, the Chinese Railways minister who was in charge of rolling out the high-speed network, was arrested on suspicion of corruption.
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