China restarts trains on disaster line
BEIJING, April 29 (Reuters) - China on Tuesday restarted some trains on railway that saw the country's worst train accident in over a decade just a day earlier which killed at least 70 people.
Passenger train T196 made its way past the stretch near Zibo in the eastern province of Shandong where two trains slammed into each other early on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.
China's worst train accident since 1997 came as the government strives to make the country secure for the Beijing Olympics in August. Authorities have signalled that they do not want people to linger on the accident.
Local railway officials have already been sacked and state media reported that a senior prosecutor had gone to the scene to investigate possible dereliction of duty.
More than 1,200 paramilitary troops, police and officials had also gathered to help the rescue and "maintain order", the Ta Kung Pao, a mainland-run Hong Kong paper, reported.
On Monday, the country's main evening television news reported on the disaster only well into the broadcast and showed sparing shots of the crumpled train carriages and twisted tracks.
Hundreds of injured passengers are in hospitals across the area and, with about 70 in critical condition, the number of dead could rise.
Zhang Lin, an athlete who was on the train from Beijing to the Shandong coastal city Qingdao, said she was jolted awake early on Monday morning and thrown out of the carriage window by the force of the crash, the China Daily reported.
The carriage came to rest inches from her feet.
"One more roll by the carriages could have crushed me," she told the paper from hospital, where she is being treated for fractures and bruising. "From that moment on, I dare not close my eyes." (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie)
