China Bullet Train Derails

[TheBrit]

I can't see that video at work (youtube blocked ) but you are saying you can't see any evidence of the survivors being hurt in the rescue effort? Just that the video has been edited (which could be for any number of reasons).

[bryant.english]

This is also, on the other hand, a good chance for China bashers to make up all sorts of conspiracy theory bollocks which will of course be swallowed hook, line and sinker by many anti China bubbleheads..

[justjoe86]

I'm not anti-china but in this case I'm pretty sure the safety checks were pretty shit. No, I have no evidence for this. But it is true that in China there is less importance attached to death (Especially death of normal Chinese people.)

My wife lived in China until she was 10 and she said that one day one of her school friends attempted to climb over a fence with spikes on the top, slipped, and killed himself. This didn't even get in the local newspaper. There wasn't any kind of memorial service at school. The boy was just forgotten.

My wife isn't anti-China either, but she's quite scared of the place.

[drumbrake]

This is also, on the other hand, a good chance for China bashers to make up all sorts of conspiracy theory bollocks which will of course be swallowed hook, line and sinker by many anti China bubbleheads..

This is a good opportunity for the China Daily posters to attempt to change the direction of the thread so that that the original purpose is forgotten.

[Ramdom]

I'm not anti-china but in this case I'm pretty sure the safety checks were pretty shit. No, I have no evidence for this. But it is true that in China there is less importance attached to death (Especially death of normal Chinese people.)

My wife lived in China until she was 10 and she said that one day one of her school friends attempted to climb over a fence with spikes on the top, slipped, and killed himself. This didn't even get in the local newspaper. There wasn't any kind of memorial service at school. The boy was just forgotten.

My wife isn't anti-China either, but she's quite scared of the place.

I feel you have much to learn young jedi.

[HongKongFoot]

Here is a few things that make sense at the same time dont make any sense what so ever. They have to clear the wreakage and tracks, thats a given, but at the same time they started crushing and burying the wrecked train.

Normally in other countries the wreckage is kept to see what happened and how it can be prevented meaning investigation. In this case, the gvt states that the investigation is completed, time to bury the past.

China normally recycles everything that is discarded, everything from scrap paper to styrofoam and metals. In this case the whole train is being crushed and buried, and the materials are not being recycled.

Something doesnt smell right here.

[MovingIn07]

Burying the train is just bizarre. In any other country it would be taken to a lab and poured over to ensure all the reasons for the crash had been analysed, surely? I find this to be most odd. It just seems too quick.

[Claire ex-ax]

Body parts were still in some of the carriages.

A literal and figurative cover-up.

[Freetrader]

The whole scenario screams incompetence - these guys can't even manage a coverup effectively. For Christ's sake, don't they know not to destroy the evidence in broad daylight in front of video cameras? Mao would have collected cameras from everyone present, and then had all the witnesses, including the clean up workers, sent to a labor camp, or, if simpler, just shot. They just don't make communists like they used to.

Still, some good may come out of this. It is said that the Soviet Union started to collapse the day that Khruschev denounced Stalin. The reason being, you simply can't run a brutal dictatorship 'humanely'; eventually a leader will come along who recognizes the folly of it all and just gives up. This high profile failure throws a wrench in a lot of the plans of the Beijing government to move their industry up the value chain (Bloomberg TV is saying: "Prospects for China Rail Exports Now Zero"). The public is fully aware of this situation and I think the fallout from the bungled rescue efforts will be even larger than the wreck itself. Put simply, the country is not ready for prime time and won't be until it achieves some reasonable level of transparency. I only hope the Chinese public is able to keep up the pressure since the regime will certainly arrest and 'disappear' anyone who is too visible a critic.

[Raccon]

What evidence should there be? It's not that the train crashed for unknown reasons, they do know exactly why but just give a shit, along the line of "let's quickly clean up, repair the tracks and continue running the trains and hope it doesn't happen again".
Sure, they could collect the wreckage and investigate whatever there is to investigate but they could also reach any conclusion they like, or does anyone here really believe they would admit to a major SNAFU in one of their prestige projects?

Reasons for burying the wreckage so far that I have read / heard about:
- cover up (unlikely when the whole world already knew about the accident and with all the cameras present)
- destruction of evidence (what exactly?)
- protecting intellectual property (yep, the railway ministry is in fact worried that someone figures out they copied technology from others)
- making a solid foundation for the rescue machinery (what's there still to rescue when you are burying the wreckage?)

Just another display of incompetence and failure to handle a disaster properly by the Chinese authorities.