Subway crash injures more than 270 in China

SHANGHAI, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- More than 270 passengers suffered injuries Tuesday when a subway train rear-ended another train in Shanghai, Chinese authorities said.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported doctors said 20 of the victims were in critical condition.

Xu Jianguang, director of Shanghai's health bureau, said at a press briefing as of 7 p.m., 271 people had been treated at hospitals and 180 had been discharged.

Most of the injuries were bruises and bone fractures but some passengers suffered head injuries, doctors said.

Firefighters evacuated more than 500 passengers from the trains.

The crash occurred about 2:51 p.m., local time, after a signal system failure at a station on the Line 10 subway, Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co. said in a statement.

At the time of the collision, trains on the Line 10 subway were being directed by phone because of the signal system failure.

Officials said all trains had been ordered to run at slower speeds.

Xinhua said the signal system is a product of Casco Signal Ltd., a joint venture of China Railway Signal and Communication Corp. and Alstom, which reportedly supplies signal systems to subways in Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen.

Casco was blamed for a subway train crash in Shanghai in 2009 and provided the centralized traffic-control system for a railway in east China's Zhejiang province, where two bullet trains crashed July 23, killing 40 people and injuring 177, Xinhua said.

Jiang Jianhua, Casco's chief engineer, could not be reached for comment.

Authorities are investigating the crash.

One passenger said after being rescued: "I was stunned, not knowing what happened. We tried to open doors and windows but couldn't. I felt smoke in the car."

"The train braked suddenly ... . Some people fell and some cried, then the automatic alarm sounded," said another passenger identified only by the surname Bian.

The passengers included four foreigners who were treated for minor injuries -- two from Japan, one from Canada and one from the Philippines, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Health said.

The crash disrupted service at nine stations on Line 10, but the line resumed operations by 7 p.m., Shanghai Shentong Metro Group said.

The company apologized in a statement on its Web site.

"Today is a dark day in the history of Shanghai Metro," the statement said. "We feel deeply sorry for the injuries and losses of the passengers no matter what the investigation results will be."

The crash was the result of a third system failure on Line 10 in the past two months, Xinhua said. One involved a signal failure, the other, a controlling device. No injuries were reported in the first two accidents.