(Ecns.cn) -- A fatal bullet train collision on the evening of July 23 occurred when a train going from Beijing to Fuzhou crashed into another stalled one near the city of Wenzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, causing four carriages to fall off a bridge.
An Lusheng, head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, said Thursday the accident was caused by design flaws in the railway signal equipment. Having been struck by lightning, the signal system at the Wenzhou South Railway Station failed to turn the green light red, causing the rear-end collision, he added.
The accident killed 40 people and left more than 190 injured. It happened only three years' after the Zibo train collision in eastern China's Shandong Province, which left 70 people dead and 416 injured on April 28, 2008.
Even though this train crash was the most deadly railway accident in recent years, it was not the only one. According to public reports, seven rail accidents occurred in the two weeks from July 10 to July 25, causing more than 50 trains to arrive behind their schedules.
In the face of frequent accidents, peoples' trust of the railways has dimmed. On July 25, the first trading day after the crash, stocks related to high-speed rails were dumped by investors. In comparison, aviation stocks soared.
As a combination of both government and private enterprises, the Ministry of Railways in charge of policing itself – planning new projects as well as inspecting them. Even though this management model has long been criticized, the ministry remains the same.
Another internal investigation
Only 24 hours after the accident, Railway Minister Sheng Guangzu asked his subordinates to implement a two-month long internal investigation, again. The inspection will focus on the safety issues of high-speed railways and trains, Sheng said on the evening of July 25.
The public is no stranger to this kind of internal inspection ordered by the head of the railway authorities. On February 15, the third day after Sheng took his post, a similar safety inspection was also carried out within the railway system.
However, the inspection did not stop the accidents. A bullet train from Wuhan to Hefei was behind schedule on March 24 due to flaws in the power supply. The analogous breakdowns happened again on both April 15 and 17 on the line.
China's first high-speed rail, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, encountered its first operational malfunction on July 10, only ten days after its debut. In addition, from July 10 to July 14, the line suffered four accidents, among which three were caused by the malfunction of the power supply system after being struck by lightning.
Even though such internal investigations have been implemented each year since 2008, they did not prevent the train collision in Wenzhou. With inside supervision not working well, the public has proposed that improvements of external supervision on the railway system be made.
The public wants to see a reform in the rail system sped up. This includes a separation of the operation and oversight of the ministry itself, and an improvement in external supervision.
Ye Tan, a well-known Chinese commentator, called for the Ministry of Railways to be made a pure watch-dog. Only by allowing the affiliated companies in the railroad, investment, and equipment industries to become independent market subjects can such a tragedy be avoided, she said.
