GCP Home

High Speed Train Crash, China

At least 43 people were killed and over 210 injured in a horrific high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou, Zhejiang at about 8:30pm last night (Saturday, July 23). The accident happened when one train, D3115, lost power after being struck by lightning, and then was rear-ended by another train, D301. A total of six carriages were derailed, two falling from the viaduct. According to Phoenix TV, the time of the crash was 20:34.

D3115 was traveling from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, and D301 from Beijing to Fuzhou. There were more than 1,400 passengers on the two trains.

According to Zhejiang radio, the driver of D301 was stabbed to death by the brake handle after using the last moment of his life to pull the emergency brake.

After a call was put out from a local Wenzhou hospital for help, hundreds shows up last night to donate blood.

The Railway Ministry has already ordered an "urgent overhaul of railway and train safety nationwide," and 21 trains have been suspended.

This tragedy is particularly scary in that the collision was caused by an unplanned power outage on the train, something that has been plaguing the recently opened Shanghai-Beijing line. We can only hope the safety overhauls are both immediate and effective.

The GCP event was set for four hours beginning at 8 pm (12:00 UTC), which is about 30 minutes prior to the crash. The result is Chisquare 14504.381 on 14400 df, for p = 0.268 and Z = 0.618.

High Speed
Train Crash, China

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


Go to Main Results Page

GCP Home