More than 200 people were injured following a collision between two subway trains in China's commercial capital Shanghai on Tuesday.
A train on a newly opened line on Shanghai's rapidly expanding subway system was rear-ended by another following a signal failure on Tuesday afternoon, leaving more than 270 passengers injured, 20 of whom were critical, according to the State-run Xinhua news agency.
The collision occurred 40 minutes after the signal system failure forced the subway staff to direct trains over telephone, rather than through electrical signals. The trains, local media reported, were told to run at slower speeds, though questions will be asked why the services were in fact not stopped.
The accident occurred when one subway train was stopped, but then restarted and crashed into another train, a passenger told Xinhua.
The accident echoed a bullet train collision, two months ago, in Wenzhou, which left at least 40 people dead and 177 injured. That accident, too, was blamed on a signalling problem.
Xinhua reported that the signal systems used on the Shanghai subway line were manufactured by Casco Signal Ltd., a joint venture between the China Railway Signal and Communication Corporation and Alstom, a French company.
According to Xinhua, Casco supplies signal equipment to subway lines in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen. The company was blamed for a crash in Shanghai in 2009, and also provided the traffic control system on the line where the Wenzhou bullet train collision took place.
The Wenzhou collision, between two first-generation bullet trains on China's recently built high-speed rail network, triggered widespread public anger over safety standards and accusations that the authorities sought to cover-up the investigation.
The collision ignited wide debate and unprecedented criticism aimed at the powerful Ministry of Railways, even from the State-run media here, following an outpouring of anger on Chinese microblogs, where the crash was first reported.
On Tuesday, the Shanghai collision was the most widely-discussed topic on the Sina Weibo microblog, which has over 200 millions users, attracting 1.3 million posts in less than half a day.
Many users blamed an emphasis on speed, rather than safety, in development projects as being behind the recent accidents.
“Haste makes waste, do we really need to be that fast?,” asked a blogger named Shouzhitou.
“There is always a price to pay for forced, fast development.”
The Shanghai authorities moved quickly to address public concerns.
Slow response
Within three hours of the accident, the Shanghai Party Secretary Yu Zhengsheng, the city's top official, visited a hospital where the injured were being treated. The authorities in Wenzhou, by contrast, were criticised by some for their slow response.
The official microblog of the Shanghai subway also promised Chinese netizens that they “would definitely draw lessons” from the accident, and would resume operations as soon as possible.
“This is the darkest day for the Shanghai subway,” the message on its microblog said. “Our hearts go out to the victims and their families.”
Shanghai, China's financial centre, has one of the country's most advanced and extensive subway systems, operating 11 lines.
The subway system underwent a massive expansion last year ahead of the Shanghai World Expo, for which the city's already impressive infrastructure received a multi-billion dollar makeover. Tuesday's accident occurred on a line that was opened last year, near the Yuyuan Gardens, a popular tourist spot.
This week's accident will reignite concerns over the speed with which China has taken forward plans to expand rail transport in the wake of the Wenzhou collision, which prompted authorities to slow down both the speed of running trains and the opening of new lines.
