Shanghai Subway Accident: Tales from the Crypt
September 28th, 2011
This has been an annus horribilis for China infrastructure. This year has seen wind turbines blowing up, bridges falling down, bullet trains crashing into one another and, most recently, a terrible accident on a Shanghai subway line I take several times a week. On hearing the news about the Shanghai accident my (Chinese) wife simply shook her head and said, “Everyone knows they’re building things too fast.” She told me of a program she had seen on Chinese national television in which engineers echoed the same sentiment. “I don’t want you to take the bullet train to Shanghai,” she said quickly, “and I don’t want you riding the subway in Shanghai, either. Ride your bicycle!” Of course, that’s hardly feasible with a 150 km to cover between Suzhou and Shanghai; leave alone the thought of navigating Shanghai traffic on a bicycle.”
Nevertheless, it was wise of the central authority to have slowed down travel on all the high-speed rail lines, and to order an audit. The official investigation of the Hangzhou-Wenzhou bullet train accident of the past summer was due out a couple weeks ago. Perhaps officialdom is hoping its citizens will forget they had announced they would publish the findings mid-September. The story that the signal system on the line had failed still stands. However, with the unexpected death a few weeks after the bullet train accident of the general manager of the design company charged with re-innovating and implementing signal technology on the high-speed railways, few dissenters will provide even a gentle reminder to the powers that be of their promise to disclose findings in a timely fashion.
Still, it is jarring that yet another, more stable showcase infrastructure project as the Shanghai subway system should also go off the rails so soon after the Hangzhou-Wenzhou incident. According to news reports, some time before the Shanghai accident subway staff was manually signalling directions to trains on the line because the system had failed. Seems a sort of retribution from beyond the grave.
Perhaps dead men can tell tales after all.
image credit: echinacities.com
October 1st, 2011 at 9:15 am
It is a hard time for China’s infrastructure indeed. Especially the bridges and highways collapsing after a few months of operations, as building a road and a bridge is really something pretty well understood and mastered. Such accidents are really due to negligence in construction.
But the accident that attract more attentions are the train and subways, more high tech projects, that also led to accidents in other countries. A few years ago the ICE training Germany experienced an accident. A little earlier, the bullet train in Japan also, if I am not mistaken.
Beside the real tragedy of these accident for the victims and families, what is important now is to see whether the relevant authorities will take actions to avoid such problems in the future. China being what it is, we will never know for sure, but I am optimistic about the fact that this is too visible to let go with no real measure.
As far as riding your bicycle, you are still much safer in a D train or a subway than on the bike or even your car !!!
Etienne
October 2nd, 2011 at 8:36 am
@Etienne;
Yes, especially with this last train accident happening in a bastion of China’s middle class – Shanghai – it’s not at all possible to sweep the incident under the rug. And that it affected so many people whose average income is far above most Chinese, especially in the interior – makes rectifying the infrastructure issues just that much more pressing for the leadership.