China recalls bullet trains in safety scare

Public anger as China’s rail industry suffers fresh blow only weeks after 40 killed in high-speed crash China’s second-biggest trainmaker is to recall 54 bullet trains used on the new showcase Beijing-Shanghai line for safety reasons, dealing a fresh blow to the nation’s rail system. The recall of the trains by China CNR Corp Ltd comes three weeks after 40 people were killed in a high-speed rail crash, which triggered public fury , unusually bold media coverage and a freeze on approvals for new railway projects . China’s high-speed rail drive was until recently held up by senior government officials as a symbol of the nation’s technological prowess. Now it has become a political albatross, drawing scorn from many citizens already frustrated with the hulking railways ministry. China’s fast-growing microblog websites have served to amplify public anger , and the recall drew more catcalls on the popular Weibo site. “Wasn’t this locomotive the most advanced type, and put into use only after many tests? So how come the problems were discovered after they were put into operation? What a miracle,” wrote one Weibo user. “Can we also recall the Ministry of Railways?,” asked another. Officials blamed July’s crash first on a lightning strike and then on faulty signals technology. But on Friday Chinese media quoted a senior investigator as saying the crash also exposed management failings and could have been avoided. “There were serious flaws in the system design that led to an equipment failure,” said Luo Lin, the minister of China’s State Administration of Work Safety, who is leading the investigation. “At the same time, this exposed problems in emergency response and safety management after the failure occurred,” the Beijing Times cited Luo as saying. “This was a major accident involving culpability that could have been totally avoided,” he said. Industry analyst Lu Zhou said the recalls added to signs that China’s high-speed railway boom faced bleak times. “The government is putting a sudden brake on China’s high-speed railway story, and we must wait for the bad days to pass over,” said Lu, an analyst with Everbright Securities in Shanghai. “A Great Leap Forward-style movement in China’s high-speed railway is changing abruptly to a period of silence, and that could last a few years,” he said. The Great Leap Forward was Mao Zedong’s disastrous effort in the late 1950s to catapult China into communist prosperity. But China could not afford to curtail train investment in the longer-term, said Luo. “After all, China’s railway system can’t go back to the old days of shabby green cars.” China Rail transport Rail travel guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.