Beijing, Jul 25 : The death toll in China's first bullet train crash stood at 35 as a shocked government on Sunday sacked three top rail officials holding them responsible for the accident that also left 192 passengers injured.
Chinese Railway Ministry spokesman Wang Yongping told media here that 35 passengers were killed in the train collision in eastern Zhejiang Province.
Wang said 192 people were injured as of Sunday night. he said 132 people are still being treated in hospitals.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported earlier that “rescuers discovered eight more bodies from damaged train carriages Sunday at a train collision site in east China's Zhejiang Province”.
The accident took place Saturday night when a train that lost power after being struck by lightning was hit by another train, sending four compartments plunging from a viaduct and derailing another two, officials said.
The first train was travelling south from Hangzhou, the capital of southern Zhejiang Province, when it lost power and stalled, before being hit by another train in Wenzhou city, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
There was, however, some good news as a toddler was rescued about 21 hours after the deadly crash, it reported.
“When we found him, he could still move his hands,” a local firefighter said, adding clean-up efforts have nearly been completed.
The sacked officials are Long Jing, head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, Li Jia, head of the Shanghai railway bureau's committee of the Communist Party of China and deputychief of the bureau He Shengli. They will also be subject to investigation. PTI
