Incident

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Incident

Train runs over tens of people in China

25 January 2008 08:31 (UTC +04:00)

Officials at Chinaâ€™s work safety watchdog said the train was travelling from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao on Wednesday night when the accident happened.
The workers had arrived on site ahead of schedule, when the train came through, travelling at up to 120kph, state media reported.
The official Xinhua news agency said the track work had been scheduled to start at 10pm and that trains had been told to slow their speed to 45kph from an hour earlier, but that the workers had arrived early and entered the work area at 8:40pm.
A spokesman for the engineering company involved blamed bad weather at the scene.
"Itâ€™s snowing heavily in the area and traffic and telecommunications are very bad," the spokesman told AFP.
Chinaâ€™s rail network is gearing up for the busiest travel period of the year as hundreds of millions of people head home to be with their families for the Chinese lunar new near holiday.
The accident comes just days after the government announced a major crackdown on workplace safety.
On Tuesday Wang Mei, Chinaâ€™s works minister, said official figures showed more than 100,000 Chinese died in workplace accidents in 2007.
He said managers who cut corners over safety would face prosecution. /APA/