At least 66 killed in China train crash

Two passenger trains collided in eastern China on Monday, killing at least 66 people and injuring hundreds as carriages derailed and toppled into a ditch, the official Xinhua news agency said. Some 247 were injured, 51 critically,

Xinhua quoted the Jinan Railway Bureau as saying, suggesting the death toll could rise further. Four were French nationals, all of whom were taken to hospital with bone fractures, the report said.

One train was en route from Beijing to the seaside resort of Qingdao when the accident happened in Zibo, Shandong province. The second train was travelling between the resort of Yantai, in Shandong, and Xuzhou in the neighbouring province of Jiangsu. Both were likely operating at full speed when the accident happened, the worst in China since 1997, a cargo worker said.

One passenger described escaping the wreckage with her 13-year-old daughter through a massive crack in the floor.

"We were still sleeping when the accident occurred," Xinhua quoted the woman, surnamed Yu, as saying. "I suddenly woke up when I felt the train stopped with a jolt. In a minute or two it started off again, but soon toppled."

Officials at the Zhoucun District People's Hospital in Zibo and at the district's Number 148 hospital contacted by Reuters said they were dealing with dozens of injured but did not give a detailed count or say how many had died. "Most are slight cases and more people are being sent in every hour," Xinhua quoted a worker at the first hospital as saying of the injured.

Witnesses and a government spokesman also said there were heavy casualties in the collision, which happened at a bend in the tracks and which caused the carriages to topple into a ditch, Xinhua reported.

Pictures posted at the news portal http://sina.com showed carriages overturned and rescue workers milling around passengers wrapped in blankets.

The local Qilu Evening news said the railway had begun a new timetable on Monday. State television said the rail line was built in 1897 and was due to be retired in favour of a high-speed link to be ready in time for the Summer Olympics, when Qingdao will host the sailing events. Railway Minister Liu Zhijun had arrived at the site and President Hu Jintao had dispatched Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to the scene, Xinhua said.

The cargo worker said trains were already backing up near his station due to the collision. In January, a high-speed train ran through a group of maintenance workers in the dark in Shandong, killing 18. China has invested about $100 billion in its railways in the past few years and is expanding the system to accommodate what is the world's most dense passenger and freight network. As it stands, China's railways can barely keep pace with the country's breakneck economic growth or with the hundreds of millions of workers who are flocking from the countryside to booming cities.

Monday's accident was the worst in China since 1997, when more than 100 people were killed in a train crash in the central province of Hunan.