NANCHANG / SHENYANG — Two separate accidents claimed the lives of 51 people on Sunday, prompting the country’s top leader to call for better traffic safety.
At 2:10 am, a landslide between Yujiang and Dongxiang in Jiangxi knocked a Shanghai-Guilin train off the tracks, killing 19 people, local authorities said. Seventy-one people were injured, 11 seriously.
It was the deadliest rail accident since April 2008, when a train derailed and crashed into another in Shandong province, leaving 72 dead and 416 injured.
In the second accident, a truck rammed into a passenger bus head on at 3 am on a highway in Liaoning province, killing 32 people and injuring 24.
President Hu Jintao ordered local authorities and rescuers to try their best to treat the victims, and urged officials to learn a lesson from the train accident as the flood season has arrived.
The train veered off the track after 8,000 cubic meters of mud and rocks from a landslide had buried a section of the railroad, the Ministry of Railways said in a statement. Jiangxi and neighboring provinces have been pounded by heavy rains in the past few days.
The locomotive and nine carriages were derailed, some of which overturned, in the mountainous area. One carriage was twisted and crushed on top of another.
Rescuers cut through the carriage to reach the trapped passengers. Backhoes and cranes were used to help remove the carriages on the tracks.
By 9 pm, more than 2,000 rescuers had cleared the tracks, and traffic was restored.
Zeng Baofeng, who suffered injuries to his head, arm and lower back, said he was the first to climb out of the fourth carriage after it turned over.
“The carriage was not full. Fewer than half the seats, about 50 to 60, were taken.”
After climbing out of a window, Zeng heard cries and went back to help.
Wang Mei, among the people he dragged out, said: “I was sleeping … I thought it was an earthquake.”
Wang, along with 17 other injured passengers, were being treated in a hospital in Dongxiang county on Sunday.
Hu Youling and her boyfriend Li Tao said they managed to escape the carriage on their own.
“I used the screen light of my cell phone to find a way out,” said Hu. “I saw bodies on the floor.”
Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun ordered all-out efforts to save lives and restore traffic. He also said the accident would be thoroughly investigated. Jiangxi Governor Wu Xinxiong arrived at the scene early Sunday morning to direct the rescue operations.
In most of South China, rainstorms since early May have triggered floods and mudslides, swollen rivers, burst dikes, threatened reservoirs and damaged highways, bridges and power towers.
Jiangxi authorities said 1.76 million residents were affected, of whom 44,600 had been evacuated.
The second accident happened near Fuxin, Liaoning province, when a truck registered in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region turned the wrong way while coming out of a service area and collided with the coach, sparking a fireball, according to the Liaoning Public Security Department.
Three people on the truck and 28 passengers on the bus were killed at the scene. The other 25 injured passengers, three of whom were in serious condition, were taken to the nearby Zhangwu People’s Hospital where one died, said Zhang Zhijing, deputy director of the hospital.
All the injured were in stable condition, Zhang said.
The coach had 53 people on board and was en route from Tianjin to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province.
“We were sleeping in the back row when the crash happened. Our 2-month-old baby was killed…” Han Meiling, 22, told China Daily in the hospital on Sunday afternoon, sobbing. She and her husband suffered minor injuries on their thighs.
Li Jimin and her husband, who do business in Harbin, were slightly injured. She said they were asleep in the back row berth when the two vehicles collided.
“We tried to creep to the bus door, but the front section of the bus was on fire. So we broke the window and managed to get out,” Li said.
“After we ran 100 meters from the bus, the whole bus was on fire. Ten minutes later, the ambulance came,” Li said.
Zou Tong, a doctor at the hospital, said that he had been treating the injured since 5 am.
The four-lane expressway linking Tieling and Chaoyang cities in Liaoning was undergoing road maintenance in the section where the accident happened, Xinhua said citing local transport authorities.
Xinhua contributed
to this story.By YAN JIE, CHEN XIN AND LIU CE CHINA DAILY
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