Shanghai train collision injures dozens

[John Ashworth]

Shanghai train collision injures dozens

Crash on one of city's newest underground lines occurred shortly after warnings of delays owing to equipment problems

Tania Branigan and agencies in Shanghai
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 September 2011 18.49 BST

Some 260 passengers were injured, 20 critically, when two trains collided on one of Shanghai's newest underground rail lines, sparking fresh concerns about China's aggressive expansion of its transport infrastructure.

One train rammed the back of another, which had stopped between stations near Yuyuan Gardens, a popular tourist spot on Tuesday. Xinhua state news agency said 20 people were in a critical condition but their injuries were not life-threatening. Some passengers suffered head wounds but most of the injuries were bruises and broken bones.

Xu Jiangguang, head of Shanghai's health bureau, gave a slightly different account, saying there were no serious injuries among the 271 passengers affected, but that 30 were being kept overnight for observation.

Shen Jun, 23, who was in the first coach of one train, said "blood was everywhere". "Many people were hurt. Look at the blood on me, on my arm," he said, pointing at patches on his shirt.

Photographs posted online showed a bleeding passenger on the floor of the carriage and others crouching in shock.

"I was stunned, not knowing what happened. We tried to open doors and windows but couldn't. I felt smoke in the car," another passenger told Xinhua. A third said: "The train braked suddenly … some people fell and some cried, then the automatic alarm sounded."

Xinhua said subway staff had been directing trains by telephone after a signal failure, with services running at slower speeds. The Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, which operates the services, twice apologised via the popular Weibo microblog service – only to delete each message shortly after it appeared.

"Today is the darkest day in the history of the Shanghai Metro's operation," read the first message. "No matter the ultimate cause and responsibility, [we feel] particularly guilty about the harm and losses borne by the public. We will put in our utmost ability to rescue the wounded, resume operations as soon as possible ... and co-operate with the relevant departments in the investigation. Even if our apologies pale in comparison to the actual injuries, we are deeply sorry."

One passenger on the second train, interviewed by Chinese television, claimed it had taken half an hour for anyone to arrive after his call to emergency services. Around 500 passengers were evacuated via subway tunnels.

The affected line opened a year ago, one of several hastily constructed before the World Expo. Xinhua said it had suffered two systems failures within the past two months.

In one case, a train appears briefly to have gone in the wrong direction. Caixin, a well-respected business magazine, said the signalling system for the subway was made by the China Railway Signal and Communication Corporation – which also made the signals blamed by some officials for contributing to this summer's high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou, Zhejiang.

That disaster killed 40 people, injured 177 and sparked an outpouring of public anger and unusually bold reporting by Chinese media. Reuters said it was unable to reach anyone at the company for comment. In July, a 13-year-old boy was also killed and 28 people injured – two seriously – when an escalator malfunctioned at a Beijing subway station.

Tuesday's collision was was the most popular topic on Weibo. "Another accident – what a joke. So much money has been spent, all they've built is crap," wrote one user.

"The alarm bells are ringing again, telling us that in economic development we cannot ignore safety and must not blindly try to follow developed western countries. We must go one step at a time," said another.

In 2005, the director of security operations for Shanghai Metro boasted that a rear-end collision could never happen on the service because of high safety standards for traffic management, and the Automatic Train Control technology on vehicles.