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Chinese netizens outraged over response to fatal bullet train crash

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Chinese netizens outraged over response to fatal bullet train crash - CNN.com

Beijing (CNN) -- Nationwide outrage continued Monday in China over the government's response to a deadly bullet train collision last weekend, even as operations resumed on the affected high-speed rail lines.

A bullet train was struck from behind Saturday night by another train near Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, killing at least 38 people -- including two American citizens -- and injuring almost 200. The first train was forced to stop on the tracks due to a power outage and the impact caused six cars to derail, including four that fell from an elevated bridge.

Although Chinese reporters raced to the scene, none of the major state-run newspapers even mentioned the story on their Sunday front pages. A user of Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, first broke the story and increasingly popular social media outlets then provided millions of Chinese with the fastest information and pictures as well as the most poignant and scathing commentaries.

By the time the railway ministry held its first press conference more than 24 hours after the collision, the public had seen not just reports of passengers trapped inside dark trains or images of a mangled car dangling off the bridge -- but also bulldozers crushing mangled cars that had fallen to the ground and burying the wreckage on site.

"How can we cover up an accident that the whole world already knew about?" said a defiant railway ministry spokesman Wang Yongping. "They told me they buried the car to facilitate the rescue effort -- and I believe this explanation."

Wang was terse when reporters asked him to explain the fact that a toddler girl was being pulled out of the wreckage alive 20 hours after the accident -- and long after authorities declared no more signs of life in the trains.

Blaming lightning strike-triggered equipment failure as the cause of the accident based on preliminary investigation, Wang put on a brave face on the safety of China's controversial high-speed rail.

"Chinese technologies are advanced and we are still confident about that," he said.

While some state media echoed Wang's sentiment, many netizens questioned his every statement from the death toll to the cause and called him the face of a ministry mired in allegations of corruption and ineptitude.

"This land is a hotbed for the world's most sprawling bureaucracy and most cold-blooded officials," user "chenjie" wrote on Sina Weibo.

Netizens also dug up an old video clip showing the railway ministry's chief engineer proudly telling state television in 2007 that China had developed modern technologies to ensure bullet trains never rear-end each other.

The quick sacking of three top local railway officials in Shanghai -- who were in charge of the affected rail lines -- failed to placate the public, either. The announced new Shanghai railway chief prompted more scorn than applause, as the replacement -- the railway ministry's chief dispatcher -- was once demoted for his role in another fatal train accident in 2008 that killed 72 people.

In a user-generated opinion poll on Sina Weibo on the government's handling of the accident, more than 90 percent of the 30,000 respondents chose the option "terrible -- it doesn't treat us as humans."

Now the world's second-largest economy, and flush with cash, China has built the world's longest high-speed rail network -- boasting more than 8,300 kilometers (5,100 miles) of routes -- in a few short years. The government plans to pour over $400 billion into rail projects in the next five years.

The massive investment and rapid construction have long raised public doubts on the new lines' safety and commercial viability. The skeptics' voices became louder after the former railway minister -- a champion of high-speed rail -- was sacked for corruption early this year.

Even the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail -- the ministry's newest and proudest project -- has broken down several times since its much-touted launch less than a month ago.

"It's not the faster, the better," Sun Zhang, a railway professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and a long-time railway ministry consultant, told CNN last month. "We have to take safety, economics and environmental impact into consideration."

"Strategically we can talk about a great leap forward in the industry, but tactically we have to do things step by step," he added.

Back online, many users -- already jittery about safety in their daily life -- now view China's high-speed rail, long considered a symbol of the country's fast rise, as a metaphor of its troublesome approach to development.

"This is a country where a thunderstorm can cause a train to crash, a car can make a bridge collapse and drinking milk can lead to kidney stones," user "xiaoyaoyouliu" posted on Sina Weibo. "Today's China is a bullet train racing through a thunderstorm -- and we are all passengers onboard."
 
So do you want to slow down or delay railway projects altogether?
 
Learn from mistakes...then carry on.

Indeed, learn from the mistakes but never halt the project. ^^

You can still makes changes or adjustments during the course of the project.
 
So do you want to slow down or delay railway projects altogether?

Neither

Though they should not happen at all but accidents are part of a project.

To draw relevant lessons & ensure the same error does not happen again is what is needed.
 
We need to find out how the lightning managed to disable the safety systems on the train.
 
We need to find out how the lightning managed to disable the safety systems on the train.

Can't imagine it happening in the bullet train. One would think there would be a collision prevention system in a train as advanced as this. They probably ran the trains too close to each other. Else the signals are supposed to trip leaving enough gap to halt the train thats following.
 
China tightens media control amid fury over response to train crash

China tightens media control amid fury over response to train crash - CNN.com

Beijing (CNN) -- Amid continuing public anger and skepticism over its handling of a deadly bullet train collision last weekend, the Chinese government has tightened its grip on the coverage by major state-run news outlets even as its attempt to rein in the fast-growing social media has so far been largely futile.

Although it still dominated headlines across China's cyberspace Tuesday night, the accident in eastern Zhejiang province had been relegated to story No. 5 in the main newscast of national broadcaster China Central Television, and what was left of its coverage focused on the heroism of rescuers.

One story CCTV has remained committed to is that of Xiang Weiyi, with almost hourly updates Wednesday on her condition. The 2-year-old girl was pulled out of the wreckage alive 20 hours after a bullet train was struck from behind Saturday night by another train, killing at least 39 people -- including her parents.

That theme for the coverage was mandated in a directive issued Sunday by the central propaganda department -- as shown in a widely circulated photo of a Chinese journalist's cell phone screen. In the same order, domestic media was barred from questioning official statements or investigating the causes of the crash.

CNN cannot independently verify the photo's authenticity, and calls to the propaganda authorities Wednesday went unanswered.

In sharp contrast to Xiang, the face that has been conspicuously missing on CCTV is that of Yang Feng, a 32-year-old Zhejiang native who lost more family members than anyone else in the accident: wife, niece, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and his unborn child.

Several videos of Yang's passionate remarks to local media have spread like wildfire online. Donning mourning clothes, he accused railway authorities of prematurely stopping the search-and-rescue operation after less than six hours and ignoring his pleas for help at the crash site.

"They saved this one girl, but had they continued their effort 15 hours earlier than her rescue, they might have saved three, four or five more lives," a grief-stricken Yang says in one video clip.

While CCTV shunned him, Yang became an overnight hero in the eyes of Chinese netizens who were riled by the government response to the accident, especially the perceived ineptitude and arrogance of the railway ministry. Less than 24 hours after he posted his first message on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, Yang has gained more than 110,000 followers.

"The closer you get to the centrally controlled media, the more they toe the Communist Party line," explained Jeremy Goldkorn, a long-time Chinese media observer whose Danwei website monitors the industry. "For this accident, Weibo posts have been so far ahead of official responses."

Chinese netizens have been fuming over the government decision to crush and bury one of the six derailed train cars when the investigation had barely started, alleging an attempted cover-up or worse. In an apparent nod to the growing online opposition, crews excavated the buried car Tuesday night and transported it to a depot for re-examination.

For Weibo users, however, any sense of vindication may prove short-lived. Analysts say Internet censors have already begun deleting more posts as netizens became critical of not just the scandal-plagued railway ministry but also of the flaws of the political system.

"They are trying to shove the genie back in the bottle," media observer Goldkorn said. "Weibo is such an effective amplifier of people's dissatisfaction that it is worrying the government a lot."

Now Yang has turned uncharacteristically quiet. Pleading for his supporters' understanding, he alluded in his most recent Weibo posts that he was under tremendous pressure to keep a low profile for the well-being of his family -- including his father-in-law, who survived the train crash.

One goal, though, seems unshakable for both Yang and Xiang's guardians. Asked separately by local media about their demands to the government, their answers sounded the same: "We don't want money -- we want the truth."
 
You bet they are outraged! The railway department acted like complete irresponsible dufuses this time.
 
I have nothing to say in relation to this accident
draw a lesson from this accident so as to prevent our recurrence
 
That said I am still a huge supporter of the Chinese High Speed Rail. I just think that the officials running the program should stop being wimps and stand up to responsibilities. If the PAP didn't search the train after those morons wanted to bulldoze it they would've never saved the little two year old girl.

Again I agree with the notion that the Chinese railroad department learn from this tragedy and increase safety precautions in the future.
 
This accident just one failure may happen for long time test of China's HSR.The passengers are white mouses.
 

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