High Speed train track collapses in China

[Possum]

Workers reinforce the section of the new high-speed rail line that collapsed in central China's Hubei province.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303717304577279203727...

 

A SECTION of a high-speed railway line that had already undergone test runs has collapsed in central China following heavy rain, the latest accident since a crash last northern summer that killed 40 people.

The official Xinhua News Agency did not mention casualties in its report today on the collapse of a 300-metre section of the railway line. It said hundreds of workers were rushing to repair the line between the Yangtze River cities of Wuhan and Yichang.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/high-speed-train-track-collaps...

[astrogal50]

What is being called a "section" is actually quite long:  7.2 kilometers or approximately 4.3 miles.

There are differing opinions about what caused yet another unexplained collapse, but rain is almost certainly not the cause.  If rain could do this so easily, then why aren't such incidents well known and common?  They aren't, only since Planet X arrived in 2003.

Chinese Official Blames Soft Soil in Latest Rail Setback

BEIJING—A Chinese official confirmed that numerous sections along a seven-kilometer, or four-mile, stretch of a new high-speed railway had sunk into the earth and would take one month to repair, as additional details of the latest blow to China's high-speed train system came to light.

Wang Zujian, director of the railway-construction bureau for the central China province of Hubei, said the incident occurred in part because the rail tracks were constructed partially on mounds of packed construction soil and gravel resting on unstable wetlands.

He said workers have rushed to the scene to reinforce the rail tracks and their foundations. He noted, however, that it would likely take about a month to finish the repair work. The line—a nearly 300-kilometer track connecting the Yangtze River cities of Wuhan and Yichang—had been tested and was set to go into service in May. He didn't say whether the opening of the line would be postponed, but it appeared likely as new test runs would be needed after the repair work.

Mr. Wang disputed a local media report that construction standards were to blame….

The Hubei railway construction official said the incident affected a 7.2-kilometer (about 4.3-mile) section of the Wuhan-Yichang high-speed rail line.

He said the high-speed rail line had been built to tolerate sinking of as much as three millimeters. But in Friday's incident, along numerous sections of the 7.2 kilometer stretch, the foundation for the train tracks sank 3.33 millimeters to 4.22 millimeters, requiring the construction bureau to repair the affected sections, he said.

Xinhua blamed heavy rains as the main trigger of the incident, but Mr. Wang on Tuesday disputed that view. "If the rain could destroy a railway line, then what kind of a project is that?" he said. It wasn't clear whether his statement of the construction on the railway on unstable ground amounted to an acknowledgment of bad planning….

Details of the latest incident didn't emerge until Monday. State media initially reported that a 300-meter (almost 1,000-foot) section had collapsed.

Xinhua said Tuesday that authorities were still investigating the cause of the accident, quotingSun Shengjie, deputy manager of China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co.—the company in charge of the construction of the entire Wuhan-Yichang bullet-train line.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303717304577279203727...

[Derrick Johnson]

This area is directly east of Hangxhou which is the point of bend for the sinking of the Sunda Plate

 

http://www.zetatalk.com/info/tinfx341.htm

 

“We have spoken previously of the areas to be affected by the bending of the tongue holding Indonesia, but can now give more specifics. Draw a line from the city of Hangzhou directly east, and consider this horizontal line the point of bend.”