Landslide in Jiangxi China derails train

[John Ashworth]

Landslide in Jiangxi China derails train killing 19

BBC Page last updated at 13:35 GMT, Sunday, 23 May 2010 14:35 UK

A landslide has caused the derailment of a passenger train in south-east China, with at least 19 people killed and 71 injured.

The train crashed into dirt and debris blocking the tracks in a mountainous area of Jiangxi province at 0210 (1810 GMT), the railway ministry said.

It had been making its way from Shanghai to the tourist area of Guilin.

Jiangxi has been hit by heavy rains in recent days, causing landslides and flooding low-lying farms.

An investigation has been opened into the crash and the provincial governor, Wu Xinxiong, was reportedly at the scene to oversee the rescue operations.

Heavy cutting equipment

The locomotive and eight of the 17 carriages appear to have overturned in the crash near the city of Fuzhou.

Some 2,000 rescuers including fire-fighters, police and soldiers worked through the night to free survivors and extract bodies, using heavy cutting equipment to reach them, China's state news agency Xinhua reports.

Officials did not know how many passengers were on board at the time of the derailment.

More than 280 passengers were evacuated from the train and 53 had been freed from the wreckage as of 0900 local time on Sunday.

A railway police officer told Xinhua that each carriage had had 118 seats and four of them had been "severely damaged".

A survivor was quoted by the agency as saying his carriage had been less than half full.

President Hu Jintao urged the railway authorities to re-open the lines as soon as possible, and they are expected to be functioning again early on Monday.

About 8,000 cu m (10,460 cu yds) of mud and rock have been cleared from the tracks.

More than than 40,000 residents in the area have been evacuated as a result of the flooding.


More reported dead in China train derailment

CNN May 23rd, 2010 07:45 AM ET

The death toll from a train derailment in eastern China has risen to 19, state media said Sunday.

An additional 71 people were wounded - 11 of them seriously - when landslides caused the locomotive and eight of the train's 17 cars to go off tracks in a mountainous area in Jiangxi Province early Sunday morning, the Xinhua news agency reported.Soldiers were working to rescue passengers who were trapped in the train, Xinhua said.

The train had left Shanghai en route to the tourist city of Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region when it was hit by landslides, Xinhua said.


Double Crash Horror: Dozens Die In China

Sky News 4:02pm UK, Sunday May 23, 2010
Alison Chung

A truck travelling on the wrong side of the road ploughed head-on into a bus that turned into a fireball on impact, killing 32 people in China.

The collision happened along a section of road undergoing maintenance in Fuxin City, in the northeastern of province of Liaoning.

The victims included 29 bus passengers and all three people aboard the truck.

Twenty-four other bus passengers were injured, with three in a critical condition.

The bus was heading from Tianjin city near Beijing to Harbin, the capital of northeastern Helongjiang province.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Just hours earlier, at least 19 commuters were killed when a passenger train hit by landslides derailed near Fuzhou city in eastern Jiangxi province.

Heavy rains caused the landslide to bury the train tracks, and the train derailed when it crashed into huge mounds of dirt and debris, China Central Television reported.

Witnesses at the scene described seeing eight of the 17 train carriages derailed and overturned in the mountainous area.

About 2,000 rescuers, including firefighters, police and soldiers, have been using heavy equipment to cut their way into the overturned train cars, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

They have so far rescued around 50 passengers who were trapped inside the crushed train carriages and evacuated another 280.

Up to 55 people have been injured, and rescuers expect to find more victims as they cut their way into more carriages.

"Each carriage had 118 seats. It is not immediately known how many passengers were aboard," a railway police officer told Xinhua.

"We are afraid the casualties could soon rise, as four of the derailed cars were severely damaged."

The train was heading from Shanghai for the tourist destination of Guilin in the south. It derailed at around 2am local time.

Rescue officials said there remains a risk of landslides in the area.

Heavy rainstorms have pounded the area in recent days, and local reservoirs have been forced to release fast-rising waters.