A team looking into the causes of the July 23 bullet train collision near Wenzhou has determined that “it was a tragic accident that should never have happened and could absolutely have been prevented and avoided.” Another academic expert wonders why the line was not completely shut down since design flaws have been found.
Speaking at the investigative team’s third meeting on Aug. 11, Luo Lin, team leader and employee with the State Work Safety Administration, said that serious defects in the system’s design which led to equipment failure had been uncovered. Additional problems brought to light include poor safety management and a lack of emergency response procedures.
The Beijing Times reports that experts had previously performed numerous experiments and simulations in search of the reasons for the train crash. Meanwhile, engineering analyses have also been made on the effects of lightning strikes and the black box recorder.
The Ministry of Railways announced its decision on Aug. 11 to lower the operating speed for bullet trains. The Shanghai-Hangzhou High Speed Railway with a designed speed of 223 miles per hour would be lowered to 186 mph, while the Hangzhou-Fuzhou-Shenzhen Passenger Dedicated Line with a designed speed of 155 mph would operate at 124 mph. Ticket prices would be decreased by five percent.
Wang Chengli, a professor in the Institute of Urban Rail Transit of Central South University in Changsha, told New Tang Dynasty TV: “Since the Ministry of Railways has admitted that there are serious defects in the design, the passenger line should be suspended so that all equipment can be replaced. Only when all problems are resolved should the line operate again.”
He believes that a minor external cause could trigger a serious tragedy, and that given the risk, the bullet train is like a “time bomb.”
The official tally is that nearly 200 injuries and 39 deaths occurred when the high-speed train D301 rear-ended the D3115 train on the evening of July 23, but netizens have said that the total number on board the four carriages must have been 400. There’s been no official word on the rest of the passengers.
