Wenzhou Railway Accident

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The Wenzhou railway accident was a rear-end collision in which two high-speed trains collided on a viaduct in a suburb of Wenzhou , People's Republic of China on July 23, 2011 after a signal interference . 40 people died and more than 210 were injured. It was the first high-speed train accident in China that killed people.

Starting position

The high-speed train CRH2-139E, which ran onto the D 3115 as D 301 and was destroyed in the process (photo from February 2011)

The accident occurred on the Hangzhou – Shenzhen high-speed line , on which the Chinese Train Control System is used as the train control system .

The train D 3115, which consisted of the CRH1-046B set of China Railways and had 1,072 passengers on board, went ahead . It was immediately followed by the D 301, which was a CRH2-139E multiple unit , in which 558 passengers traveled. D 3115 came to a halt. The reason for this was a lightning strike in a signaling device.

the accident

The signaling device, disturbed by lightning, triggered an emergency brake on the first train , D 3115, but at the same time reported to the safety system that the section in which the train was now parked was free of railway vehicles. The engine driver of the train tried to bypass the safety technology that had triggered the emergency brake, which he succeeded after seven minutes. He started the train again. Only when it reached the next block section , which was functioning properly, did the dispatcher notice that the route in front of the next D 301 was obviously not free. He warned the driver of the D 301 to be careful when the collision occurred on a viaduct at 8:34 p.m. At the time of the accident, the D 301 was traveling at a speed of almost 100 km / h. The rear wagons of the D 3115 and the first of the D 301 derailed. Four cars crashed from the viaduct.

consequences

40 people died and more than 210 were injured. It took 21 hours until the last injured man was recovered from the rubble. Shortly afterwards, the investigation of the accident site was broken off and the crashed wagons dismantled on the spot, the first vehicle of the D 301 even before it was examined. The public criticism and the suspicion that evidence should be removed here was met with official censorship , which the media only partially followed. In addition, the official reactions to the accident were initially contradictory. The official result of the investigation was available in December 2011 and determined that conceptual errors in the signaling system, misconduct by those responsible for safety - the report names 54 responsible persons, including the then incumbent Chinese Transport Minister Liu Zhijun - and other deficiencies had led to the subsequent Train was not ordered to “stop” when the train in front stopped. However, the technical details of the report remained so vague that it ultimately did not reveal how this failure of the railway infrastructure , which was supposed to ensure train protection, could come about .

The fact that high-speed trains were involved in the accident and that it happened on a high-speed line did not play a role in the course of the accident. Both trains drove at less than 100 km / h. Nevertheless, the accident led to a temporary halt in the construction of new high-speed lines in China and temporarily reduced the number of passengers so significantly that the Chinese State Railways responded with a 5% reduction in fares.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ First Fatal Crash on Chinese High Speed ​​Line  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Railway Gazette International v. July 25, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.railwaygazette.com  
  2. ^ NN: First Fatal Crash on Chinese High Speed ​​Line . In: Railway Gazette International v. July 25, 2011.
  3. ↑ NN: Toddler rescued 21 hours after train crash in stable condition, parents dead ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Xinhua v. July 25, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / news.xinhuanet.com
  4. ↑ Wang Zhenghua: Public wary of high-speed railway - Survey . In: China Daily v. July 26, 2011; Chris Cooper: China Crash May Give 'Zero' Chance for Bullet-Train Exports . In: Bloomberg Television v. July 26, 2011.
  5. ↑ Atsushi Okudera, Kenji Minemura and Nozomu Hayashi: Criticism spreads as China buries car in high-speed train disaster . In: Asahi Shimbun v. July 26, 2012.
  6. ^ NN: Hasty burial of wreckage sparks suspicion . In: China Daila v. July 26, 2011, p. 3.
  7. ^ The Wall Street Journal: How China's Train Tragedy Unfolded .
  8. ↑ NN: China blames fatal train crash on 54 officials . In: The Independent .
  9. ^ NN: China Cuts Ticket Price Of High Speed ​​Rail . In: CapitalVue News v. August 12, 2011.

Coordinates: 27 ° 58 ′ 39.5 ″  N , 120 ° 35 ′ 16.1 ″  E