Train hits, kills 11 in China's worst rail accident in over a decade

BEIJING: A train ran into a group of railway workers in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming today, killing 11 and injuring two, officials there said, the country’s deadliest rail accident in more than a decade.

The train, which was testing earthquake detection equipment, hit workers on a curved section of track at the city’s Luoyang Town railway station, the officials said.

The station in Yunnan province has since resumed normal services and the cause of the accident is being investigated, they added in a statement.

Also yesterday, two railway maintenance workers died after being hit by a train in Deyang in Sichuan, another southwestern Chinese province, Jimu News reported.

China‘s rail network is the world’s largest, spanning more than 160,000km and racking up billions of trips each year.

Though praised for its efficiency, it has drawn scrutiny after several high-profile incidents, such as a 2011 crash in the eastern province of Zhejiang that killed 40 and injured 200.

Nine people were killed in 2021 when a train in the northwestern province of Gansu ran into workers on a section of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway.

© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd

Source link