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February 28, 2007
Sandstorm of Death
Every time I leave Xinjiang, deadly sandstorms seem to plague the region. The message from the man upstairs to residents of Xinjiang? You'd better keep ol' Michael around, if you know what's best for you! Alright, alright... I shouldn't be treating death and destruction so lightly. But sandstorms in February? Something freaky is going on.
The jist of the story:
The Urumqi Railway Bureau says three people have been confirmed dead and 34 were injured, two of them are in a serious condition.
According to the Urumqi Railway Bureau, 11 carriages of Train No. 5806 were derailed by winds gusting to 144km at around 2:00 a.m, soon after it left Turpan, about 120 km from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. The train was on its way to Aksu, in southern Xinjiang.
"Winds measured force 13, as powerful as a hurricane," said the railway bureau.
"Sand and dust cracked the window panes soon after the train left Turpan, and blew some of the cars off the tracks as we were trying to plug up the windows," said passenger Su Chuanyi, a local TV journalist.
Not exactly the kind of story that makes me long anytime soon for the warm, sandy, deadly embrace of Xinjiang. Have I mentioned that it's a lovely, sunny, and clear day here in New Jersey?
You can read the whole Xinhua wrap-up below.
China Exclusive: Strong winds derail train, leaving more than 30 casualties in NW China
28 February 2007
Xinhua News Agency
By Xinhua writer Ji Shaoting
URUMQI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- At least three passengers have been killed and more than 30 injured after the train they were traveling in was derailed by hurricane force winds, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early Wednesday, rescuers said.
The Urumqi Railway Bureau says three people have been confirmed dead and 34 were injured, two of them are in a serious condition.
According to the Urumqi Railway Bureau, 11 carriages of Train No. 5806 were derailed by winds gusting to 144km at around 2:00 a.m, soon after it left Turpan, about 120 km from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. The train was on its way to Aksu, in southern Xinjiang.
"Winds measured force 13, as powerful as a hurricane," said the railway bureau.
"Sand and dust cracked the window panes soon after the train left Turpan, and blew some of the cars off the tracks as we were trying to plug up the windows," said passenger Su Chuanyi, a local TV journalist.
"The first rescue team of more than 100 people, including doctors and police officers, arrived at 4:30 a.m," Su said.
Later almost a thousand rescuers were at the scene, said local railway bureau.
"The tragedy happened when most passengers were asleep. I fell off from the middle bunk bed when I was just going to get up and plug the cracked windows," said a 34-year-old passenger named Li Zhi from a local travel agency.
"I blacked out for quite a while and woke up when other passengers were asking how I was," said Li who was in the fourth car of the train, which he said rolled three times down an embankment.
Li saw a trapped man whose body was half way out a window.
"I tried to pull him out but I couldn't. The only thing I can do for him is to cover his body with a sheet," the still shaken Li told Xinhua.
"We tried to calm down and plan out own rescue," Li said. A few of strong young man broke the windows, and helped the old and young get out first. One by one all the passengers got out, Li said.
"I got out in my bare feet without even a penny in my pocket," Li said.
The temperature was minus 10 Celsius.
Li was taken 70 km to a hospital. "I can't move my waist and I feel dizzy when I lower my head," Li said.
The area is well known for strong winds and is near a wind farm. A similar accident derailed 11 train carriages of a train in 2001.
The railway, which was blocked for 11 hours, is now back in operation and 1,100 passengers of the derailed train have reached their destination, said the local railway bureau.
Wednesday is the tenth day Chinese lunar new year and many of the passengers were returning home after visiting family members and friends over the holiday. The Urumqi Railway Bureau earlier predicted it would handle 1.397 million local passengers during Spring Festival.
One train with more than thousand passengers, most of them were university students heading back to school was cancelled, said the local railway bureau.
Winds were so heavy rescuers has to wait for them to subside.
"The wind was too strong to stand against. My face and hands were scratched by the sand and small stones. Sand filled my mouth whenever I took a breath," said a local rescuer named Zhang Xiaoli.
"While it's always winds in this area, it's rare to see a train derailed by wind," Zhang said.
Wind, cold and snow hit Xinjiang two days ago, said the regional meteorological station.
A task force from the Ministry of Railways is heading for the scene.
In April last year the windows of a train from Urumpi to Beijing were cracked by a sand storm and the train was delayed 32 hours near where Wednesday's accident occurred.
Eleven train cars were derailed by strong winds in April 2001 in the same section. No one was killed in that accident.
The rail line is a branch of Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway.
In 2003, the Ministry of Railways and Urumqi Railway Bureau built a three-meter-tall wall along the main rail line to protect trains from strong winds. The project cost 1.3 billion yuan (about 168 million U.S. dollars). Xinhua reporter Zhao Chunhui and Ding Xiuling based in Xinjiang Autonomous Region contributed to the story.
posted February 28, 2007 at 10:14 PM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!
Comments
Jeez, I rode trains in China thinking they were the safest form of travel. Well, sandstorms be damned, they probably still are. I wouldn't want to run into those kinds of winds at the wrong altitude while -flying- around Xinjiang though.
The comment above was posted by Vincent at March 1, 2007 01:58 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
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The comment above was posted by Shopgirl at March 1, 2007 02:09 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Agreement reached on rail-victim payments
By Zhang Liuhao 2007-3-6
Shanghai Daily
RAILWAY authorities will pay more than 200,000 yuan (US$25,000) as compensation to each family of the three people who died in a derailment last week in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The families of the victims reached the compensation agreement with railway authorities on Sunday, the Beijing News reported yesterday, citing an unidentified family member of a victim Shi Lei.
Railway authorities will pay 200,000 yuan, and the Urumqi Railway Administration will pay another 5,000 yuan, donated by the administration employees, to each family, the newspaper said.
The task force, sent to deal with the aftermath of the accident, has left the scene, the Beijing News reported.
The report didn't reveal if or how authorities will compensate families of the injured.
According to earlier media reports, 11 carriages of Train No. 5806 were derailed about 2am on Wednesday by hurricane-force winds gusting at up to 144 kilometers per hour.
In addition to the three deaths, 34 people were injured.
The comment above was posted by michael at March 6, 2007 02:49 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Similar story unfolding up in DongBei. We had a freak snowstorm yesterday that killed several people and knocked out power, water and gas in large swaths of Dalian. No fun at all. And I thought it was supposed to warm up this time of year.
The comment above was posted by Chris at March 6, 2007 02:27 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
GALE WARNINGS TO PROTECT PASSENGERS FROM ACCIDENTS
By Xin Dingding
6 March 2007
China Daily
A gale warning system is being developed to protect passengers traveling by trains, after three people were killed when a train was blown off its tracks in western China.
The Ministry of Railways commissioned the warning system in response to the freak accident in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region last Wednesday, which left more than 30 passengers injured.
If successful, the system will be used across the country.
Currently only the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is equipped with a strong wind warning system, said Lu Zhizhong, an expert with the High-speed Railway Research Center.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway's system involves a research center run by the Central South University in Changsha, Hunan Province, gathering weather information for statistic analysis, before sending warnings to train drivers according to their location.
"In the case of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, we send out warnings if the wind speed reaches more than 18 meters per second," said Lu.
So far, the center has sent at least 50,000 warnings, and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has not experienced any accidents caused by strong wind.
However, for most railways, the current practice is that local meteorological stations send the latest weather information to train dispatchers who have to use their own judgement to decide whether a train should run.
In areas with strong year-round winds, some special measures have been taken to ensure safety, such as installing wind-measuring facilities along railways in Xinjiang, which automatically collect wind data every three seconds, sending it to train dispatchers.
But in general, China needs to improve the railways' strong wind warning system, say experts.
Lu said research into the effect strong winds can have on trains began rather late, because trains running faster than 160 kilometers an hour which are particularly prone to high winds were only introduced to China in recent years.
Last Wednesday, 11 of the 19 cars of a passenger train on its way from Urumqi to Aksu in Xinjiang were knocked off the rails by a sudden gust of force 13 gale force wind.
The families of the three passenger who died in the derailment will each receive 200,000 yuan ($25,800) in compensation from the Railways Ministry, the Beijing News reported, quoting a relative of victim Shi Lei.
The ministry yesterday refused to confirm the amount. According to railway compensation rules, each passenger, whether dead or injured, is entitled to no more than 40,000 yuan ($5,170) in compensation.
The comment above was posted by michael at March 7, 2007 03:11 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
This is terrible. Sorry to all the victims.
The comment above was posted by 古董衣50的时尚 at March 7, 2007 08:21 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
I was on the train behind that one! We passed right by its twisted mangled remains only about four hours after it had been blown over. Our own train had been delayed for nearly ten hours - we came to a complete halt just outside Turpan. The passengers were nearly rioting with people shouting at train guards,
"How can a bit of wind stop a train!"
Complete silence descended after we passed the wreckage though.
The comment above was posted by David at March 18, 2007 09:46 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Sorry, having just read the article I realize it must have been 8 hours later. We passed at about 10am.
The comment above was posted by David at March 18, 2007 09:52 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
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