No one wants to take blame for cable-car accident
YABULI, Heilongjiang province: Organizers of the ongoing Chinese National Winter Games blamed the stunning cable-car accident here on Wednesday to improper operation by the passenger, but others had different opinions.
The accident took place about 20 minutes after the K90m individual event when Hou Shuangmei, a female ski jumping broadcaster, tried to take the cable car downhill.
The car went so fast that Hou had no time to pull down the protective handrail. She slid off the cable car and fell between five and six m to the ground below, breaking a lumbar vertebra and severely fracturing her thighbone and ankle.
Hou was taken to the No 1 Hospital affiliated with Harbin Medical University.
"Fortunately, the injuries will not cause paralysis," doctor Pan Qi told Xinhua at the hospital, adding that the medical fees had been prepaid by the Heilongjiang sports administration.
Zhou Yiyun, the director responsible for courses and facilities of the organizing committee in Yabuli, told a press conference this evening that Hou did not board the cable car at a safe location.
Zhou said that the organizing committee had assigned assistants to every cable car stop to instruct and help passengers use the contraption.
"(Hou) chose a position to get on the car, which was too far from the proper place," Zhou said. "The assistant at the stop was helping a photographer who had just gotten hurt taking the cable car, so he could not pay more attention to Hou."
But the slightly wounded photographer said that the assistant helping him was called downhill after the photographer was hurt and no one at the stop helped him get on the car.
In addition, no instructive boards or manuals were found at the stop.
Zhou explained: "Maybe the assistant was in the room beside the stop to keep away from the cold outside."
According to Zhou, the cable car had just been installed at the ski-jumping course before the Winter Games started, and the contraption had passed safety qualification.
But journalists and the working staff at the ski jumping competition who had taken the cable car said they had never found any assistants in the stops to instruct them how to use it.
"The speed of the car is too fast and there is no speed-down when the car arrives at the stop for passengers to get on," a reporter from Jilin Television said.
Zhou promised that the speed of the cable car would be lowered on Thursday and he would send more assistants to help passengers.
"The cable car is designed and installed only for the working staff of the competition and athletes. It will not be used for spectators nor the press in next year's world universiade," Zhou noted.
Xinhua
(China Daily 01/25/2008 page23)
