Earlier live reports

 

The trains were administrated by two different regional railway bureaus - train D3115 by the Shanghai Railway Bureau while train D301 by the Nanchang Railway Bureau.

In the opposite direction, high-speed train D3212 from southeastern city of Xiamen to Hangzhou was also stopped by lightning at about 8 pm Saturday. No passenger was injured, said Liu Jiwei who was on board.

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Pan Yiheng, the driver of train D301, was stabbed to death by a brake handle in his chest. He triggered the emergency brake at the last moment of his life, according to the FM93.0 radio of Zhejiang.

 At the No.1 Hospital attached to the Wenzhou Medical College, a man about 40 years old told Xinhua he was a passenger from the 16th coach of D3115. There were more than 60 passengers aboard the coach.

 "We were trapped in the coach for more than one hour before five of us broke the window and crawled out," said the man, who did not reveal his name.

 The five passengers also dragged an old man and a woman out of the coach, but the old man died half an hour later.

 A woman surnamed Zhou in Lucheng District People's Hospital in Wenzhou said she was in the 11th coach on train D3115. She and her whole family, four adults and two children, got on the train from Hangzhou.

Ministry apologizes for deadly train crash

 "At around 8 pm at the Yongjia station, the train was supposed to stop for one minute, but actually stayed for 25 minutes," Zhou told Xinhua.

 "After it moved, we heard a 'bang' and it felt like an earthquake. I immediately held my five-year-old kid to my arms," she said.

 Zhou got a bruise in her arms and her kid was injured on the head. Luckily, all of her family members survived.

 Gu Xianwei, a native from Guizhou Province, said he was driving by when the accident occurred. "Hearing a huge bang, I saw two trains crashed."

 Gu rushed to the scene later and rescued many people out of the coaches with other rescuers.

 Liu Hongtao, a host with Voice of Strait, a radio in Fuzhou, was on board the 4th coach of D301 when the collision occurred.

 "The train suddenly shook violently, casting luggage all around," he said while being interviewed by China Central Television (CCTV) at 11 pm "Passengers cried for help but no crew responded."

 A passenger failed to smash the window with a fire extinguisher but managed to open a crack. Other passengers rushed to crawl out of the train through the crack, he added.

 "One coach perched like a chimney and another was broken in half," Chen Yujie, a host with Zhejiang traffic radio, who was at the scene, described the accident to CCTV.

 Both Liu and Chen said they constantly saw lightning.

 

Ministry apologizes for deadly train crash
A crashed bullet train is seen in this picture taken in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, July 23, 2011. [Photo/Xinhua]

Constant rescue

 Zhao Yide, mayor of the Wenzhou City, said there were more than 1,400 passengers on the two trains, and the uninjured had been transported by buses.

 "Searches are underway and we won't allow a single sign of life to slip away," said Zhao.

 Two coaches fallen onto the ground were overlapping off the viaduct, which needed cranes and cutting machines for the rescue, Xinhua reporters at the scene said.

Ministry apologizes for deadly train crash

 Zhejiang provincial department of health organized four medical teams heading to the scene, which comprised medical staff from the Zhejiang No.1 Hospital, Zhejiang No.2 Hospital, Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital and Taizhou Hospital.

 The department also required hospital staff near the site to rush to the scene for rescue work.

 The blood center of Zhejiang Province is "fully prepared to guarantee rescue blood." The center was reported to have transported blood to Wenzhou from Lishui and Taizhou cities, according to the FM93.0 radio of Zhejiang.

 The radio said hospital blood was in tight supply and called on Wenzhou residents to donate blood to the city's blood center.

 More than 200 residents arrived at the Wenzhou blood center Saturday night. Pictures on weibo.com showed that the long queue included teenagers and young people in their twenties. They waited silently in the night for blood donation.

 Right after the accident, Minister of Railways Sheng Guangzu rushed to the ministry's control and command center in Beijing to guide the rescue. The latest news was that Sheng was heading for the accident scene.

 Sheng called for immediate and the greatest efforts from the rescue teams to save the injured passengers, and he required an in-depth investigation in the accident.

 Hu Yadong and Lu Chunfang, deputy ministers of railways, were also hurriedly going to the scene for rescue work.

 At midnight Saturday, the ministry ordered an urgent overhaul of railway and train safety nationwide.

 Lu Zushan, governor of Zhejiang Province, arrived at the scene early Sunday morning.

 

Public worries

The public expressed their worries online over the operation of high-speed trains after the fatal incident. Many said they would not choose to take bullet trains.

Ministry apologizes for deadly train crash

 A netizen called Su Yan doubted the safety of high-speed trains at the website of Wujin News.

 "Who dares to take bullet trains or high-speed trains?" Su Yan said. "The operational safety of China's railways is seriously challenged, and it'll be a long and tough process to earn customers' trust again."

 "China should not only learn technologies but also management," said Ma Xiaolin, a well-known public commentator.

 

 Cai Chengping, director of the Tokyo-based Asia-Pacific Political and Economic Research Center, said at his microblog at weibo.com that Japan had suffered similar train derailing, but the safety condition improved a lot afterwards.

 "China should learn from Japan on dealing with accidents," he said.

 Actually, problems with China's fledgling high-speed railway have been in the spotlight in the past weeks after the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway started operation on June 30. Trains on the route have been delayed for at least three times because of power failure or lightning factors.

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