China ‘sacrificing safety for growth’

CHINESE authorities came under fire yesterday after the worst subway accident in 42 years raised fresh fears that the world’s second biggest economy was sacrificing safety in the rush to develop.

The operator of Shanghai’s subway Line 10 said human error played a role in the crash, in which 270 people were hurt, 20 critically, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a company statement.

“According to an initial investigation, a sudden loss of power caused the signal system to fail, forcing the trains to be operated manually,” Xinhua said.

“Personnel failed to follow relevant management rules, which led to the accident.”

The accident came just two months after a deadly collision between two high-speed overland trains in Wenzhou set off a wave of criticism of China’s ambitious rail-building plans.

That crash promoted the government to suspend railway project approvals and launch safety checks on existing equipment.

The Global Times newspaper, owned by Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, called the managers of China’s cities “backward” and said growth should not come at a cost to public safety.

“The tragedies in Wenzhou and Shanghai keep reminding people that China cannot afford failure,” it wrote.

“Shanghai has already had the appearance of a developed city, but accidents such as the subway collision and the Shanghai fire last November [in which 53 people died] reveal that it is still a developing city at its core.”

The Shanghai government and an outside investigative team were examining the crash near the well-known Yu Yuan garden, which occurred after the failure of the signal system forced staff to direct trains by telephone.

Chinese internet users took to the Twitter-like microblogging website Weibo to criticise the government for its plans for rapid development and for sacrificing public safety.

“This is one wave after another,” said one user. “Everybody should learn self-rescue methods because that’s what it takes to survive in this country.

“What happened in Shanghai tells us that the government has not served its people wholeheartedly and can’t even learn from mistakes.”

Parts of Line 10 on which the accident occurred were closed yesterday, but other lines were operating normally.

Shanghai has 11 lines on more than 400km of track, as well as a maglev (magnetic levitation) link to its main international airport.

Official news agency Xinhua said the signal systems used on the line were made by Casco Signal, a joint venture between China Railway Signal and Communication and Alstom, the French power and transport engineering group.

Casco also supplied systems on the rail line where two high-speed trains crashed in July, killing 40.