China's High Speed Rail crash and the "rescue mission"

GWC Community Off-Topic/Other
#1

So, after China steals the high speed rail technology from Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and patented it in rest of the world, while failing to obtain critical technology such as electrical control system for collision avoidance, China boasted about its high speed rail technology dominating the world. They named these trains “He-Xie” which means "Social Harmony’ .

Well, now that accident happened because a. A lightening strike stopped a train in its tracks. b. electrical control system failed to detect possible collision, and two High Speed train collided.

In the rest of the world what usually happens is this. First the trains will be left alone for the rescue workers to work past the survival period, which is usually at least 72 hours. After all the bodies, dead or alive are removed from the wreckage, the trains will be carefully move to a facility to determine the cause of the accident and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.

Not so in China, after the accident, instead of rescuing possible survivors, the Chinese government used cranes to drag sections of trains off the elevated rail way, letting the body of the train free fall to the ground. Then they dug huge holes along the accident site to bury the train immediately. To get the darn trains into the hole, they slice the trains into pieces, before bulldozing the pieces into the hole.

There were passengers still alive when the trains fell to the ground. There were passengers still alive before the trains got buried. A two and half year old girl managed to survive after being discovered while her train was being chopped to pieces by heavy machinery.

Why all the hast if not for rescuing people? Well, the accident happened Saturday night, and they wanted the high speed rail to resume by monday morning. From the accident to them declaring end of rescue and starting to drag the trains off the elevated tracks, only 8.5 hours went by. After another 12 hours, all trains are off the elevated tracks and buried. The high speed rail resumed 7 am monday.

Compare that to the German ICE accident june 3rd 1998 in Eschede, 1000 rescue workers searched for life from noon Wednesday to the weekends. The rail did not resume until 6 days later, with all 59 ICE1 of the same design withdrawn from services until further inspection. After discovering the fatigued wheels were the cause, all ICE1 were refitted before returning to service.

I guess those Chinese are very efficient at wreckage mur…, i mean rescues…

#2

Wow, that’s even worse than what I heard.

#3

Wow. I had to re-read that twice and my jaw dropped both times. I feel so bad for the people on the train. That’s just crazy.

#4

The uproar of victims families have caused the Chinese government to dig up the buried trains for further examination. So far, the reporters managed to get footage and some of the truth out. Not sure how long that is going to last if the uproar by the families escalate. The state police are now beginning to stop foreign reporters from filming protests, families searching for passengers, or protests against the rail department. If the state police gets in the mix, then I hope those families have a way to get the heck out of there.

By the way, two high speed trains collided, one derailed so badly, a section flew off the elevated rail and plunged into the ground vertically. Yet they claim only 35 deaths. Is that possible? As it happens most of China’s recent human error tragedies also killed exactly 35 people. Because coincidentally, human error caused more than 35 deaths goes over the mandated limit, and local officials are required to step down. So, all human errors causes 35 to 33 deaths in China. It’s the magic number.

#5

I would like to know more about the claims that they buried living people in the train sections, in the post “dashed infants on the concrete floors after pulling them from their incubators” (Gulf War 1) media-misled world, I think a certain expectation of independent confirmation is warranted.

#6
  1. The search and rescue window was from 8:30pm to 4 am. Then they called end of search and rescue. They did not spend any day light searching for passengers.

That is not enough time for searching for survivors, let along bodies of passengers.

  1. On Sunday morning, they began dragging the trains to the ground and slicing them open.

The little girl was discovered as the train was being sliced to pieces by heavy machinery. That was pure luck on her part, as some crew insisted on checking. They did not go in to each train with the jaw of life to see if people needed rescue.

Was there people in there? I saw the official news footage of the train being dragged off the tracks, with zoomed in you can see through a window that someone was still holding on to a handle bar before, and then lost his grip as the train fell. It is so tiny since it was shot from a far, it’s how that footage slipped pass censors. Whether that person is alive or not, I don’t know. But there were bodies on the trains as they fell. And I don’t think they gave enough time and effort to determine if they were all dead. Even if they were all dead, that’s hardly the right thing to do.