China: Human error behind train collision

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Human error was to blame for China's worst train accident in more than a decade, China's official news agency reported.

Additionally, one of the trains was traveling over its speed limit, Chinese authorities were quoted as saying in the official Xinhua News Agency.

Two passenger trains collided in eastern China's Shandong province Monday morning, killing at least 70 and injuring 420, the Xinhua said.

One train on its way from Beijing to Qingdao, a city in eastern China, derailed and crashed into a train which was traveling from the Shandong city of Yantai to Xuzhou in the eastern Jiangsu Province, according to a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The wreck happened in the city of Zibo in Shandong Province at 4:43 a.m., the report said. Xinhua said the collision was the deadliest train accident in the country since 1997.

"It [the train] toppled 90 degrees to one side and then all the way to the other side," a passenger named Zhang was quoted in Xinhua. "When it finally went off the tracks, many people fell on me and hot water poured out of their thermos flasks."

Local villagers joined police officers and medical workers in the rescue effort, breaking train windows with farm tools to pull out stranded passengers, Xinhua said. Survivors also joined in, using blankets from sleeper cars as stretchers to lift the seriously injured from the stricken carriages.

A 38-year-old woman called Yu told Xinhua she had escaped through a crack in the floor of the carriage with her 13-year-old daughter.

"We were still sleeping when the accident occurred," she said. "I suddenly woke up when I felt the train stopped with a jolt. In a minute or two it started again, but soon toppled."

Xinhua said investigators had ruled out terrorism as a cause of the crash. Its English report said it was human error, while its Chinese-language report attributed the crash to negligence.

CCTV, China's state television station, said four French citizens were among the injured.

Trains are the most popular way to travel in China. The nation's rail network carried 1.36 billion passengers last year, according to The Associated Press. While accidents are rare, the government is trying to extend and upgrade the state-run rail network and introduce more high-speed trains. E-mail to a friend

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