|
Train derailment kills 4, injures 71
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-30 07:46 Four passengers died and at least 71 were injured after a train derailed in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region during a rain-triggered landslide, a railway official said. The train coded 1473, from Xiangfan of central Hubei province to Zhanjiang of Guangdong province, derailed at 4:22 am in a narrow valley in Liuzhou of Guangxi. "The landslide occurred so suddenly that it was impossible for local railway patrol staff to discover it and send off warnings to stop the train," the official, who declined to give his name, said. "We can know it was a sudden landslide because another train, which passed the spot 20 minutes before the derailed one, went through safely," he told China Daily. The landslide caused approximately 6 m long of rail tracks to be buried under mud, the China News Agency reported. Unable to get through the mud, the locomotive and its first four sleeper cars slipped off the rail track. According to Liao Chengguo, a spokesman for rescuers based at the nearby Liucheng county, three passengers died immediately on the spot, while the fourth died on the way to hospital. Chen Ming, spokesman for the Nanning Railway Bureau, told China News Agency the train's two drivers are among the injured, and one of them was severely wounded. By yesterday noon, all the injured have been transferred to hospitals in Liuzhou with better facilities, Xiang Jun, a government official in Liuzhou, said. The remaining passengers - more than 1,400 - were taken to nearby railway stations to continue their travel plans, Xiang said. A local resident surnamed Li told China Daily that heavy rain swept the area continuously for two days, and stopped yesterday morning. He said the local meteorological station had issued an orange alert for the rain. On a scale of four, the orange alert is the second-highest, meaning precipitation volumes are expected to reach more than 50 mm in three hours, with traffic restrictions put into effect and advisories issued telling people to avoid any work outdoors. When the first group of rescuers arrived at the scene at around 5 am, it was still drizzling, Liao said. "On the scene, luggage was scattered around everywhere, and people were crying," he said. Rescuers found the first two carriages were the most seriously distorted, with many passengers trapped inside. Rescuers then broke the windows and pulled them out, he said. By 6 pm yesterday, both the intact and the derailed train carriages had been cleared away from the track, the railway official said on anonymity. "The traffic is expected to resume tonight," he said.
 (China Daily 07/30/2009 page3) |
