Beijing Calls for Train-Crash Probe

By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU in Beijing and JAMES T. AREDDY in Wenzhou, China

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a "swift, open and transparent investigation" into a deadly bullet-train crash amid rising public anger, while rail officials said the accident resulted from the failure of signaling systems.

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Relatives of the victims in Saturday's train crash hold a banner demanding the truth about the accident during a protest at Wenzhou's South Railway Station on Wednesday.

Lower-ranking officials had already initiated an investigation of Saturday's collision between two high-speed trains near the eastern city of Wenzhou, which killed at least 39 people and injured 192 others. Mr. Wen's directive, which came at a meeting of the State Council on Wednesday and was reported prominently by state media, appeared to be an effort to show the government's seriousness, after a flood of online criticism that the response so far has been confusing opaque.

The government said a preliminary inquiry into Saturday's crash indicated that a lightning strike had caused one train to lose power, and that the second train then rear-ended it.

On Thursday, Xinhua, citing railroad officials, said the railway signal system around Wenzhou failed to turn to red from green after being hit by lightning, which then led to the rear-ending. The news agency said the cause of the crash was revealed by An Lusheng, head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, during a State Council meeting.

The official account has puzzled some experts, who say that lightning strikes that disable trains and signaling and other safety systems are rare—and that even if they occur, rails systems are supposed to have backup measures that prevent collisions such as Saturday's.

Deadly Train Crash in China

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Workers cleared wreckage Sunday after a high-speed train derailed and carriages fell off the elevated track in the town of Shuangyu in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

One Chinese expert has alleged that China's Ministry of Railways made a misguided decision in 2003 to skimp on safeguards against lightning for the country's bullet-train network—which is already the world's largest such network, with plans for a total of 16,000 kilometers, or 10,000 miles, of tracks by 2020.

He Jinliang, a professor at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University and director of China's National Lightning Protection Technology Standard Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that the Ministry of Railways decided in 2003, shortly before China began embarking on its drive to build an extensive high-speed rail network, against protecting the network's power-distribution equipment for the trains with lightning rods and surge protection. The equipment in question: those tall poles that suspend power lines along the tracks, from which trains draw electricity for propulsion. That decision came even as Mr. He's committee—a semiofficial standard-setting body—in the same year adopted standards that recommended installing those lightning-protection devices for big structures such as high-rise buildings and tall bridges.

Those safeguards "would not provide complete protection" against lightning, but they would reduce the likelihood that lightning would severely affect train operation, Mr. He said. "Strong lightning is dangerous as it could short-circuit the network's power-distribution equipment and cause power outages that could paralyze signaling and safety systems."

Mr. He said he doesn't know why the country's rail authorities decided to skimp on those safety devices. "But as far as I know, lighting rods or surge protectors are not installed on the high-speed rail network's power-distribution pylons." The lack of such safeguards, he said, could have played a role in Saturday's accident.

Mr. He's claim couldn't immediately be verified. The Railways Ministry didn't respond to requests to comment. Ministry spokesman Wang Yongping hasn't spoken to reporters since holding a press conference on Sunday.

Anger over the accident and over the lack of a substantial explanation for it so far has grown throughout the week. On Wednesday, family members of some crash victims protested at a train station in Wenzhou with banners demanding the "truth" about the incident. Photos from the protest were posted on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging site popular in China.

Mr. Wen, at Wednesday's meeting of the State Council, China's top government body, offered his "deep condolences" to the victims and their families, according to state-run Xinhua news agency. A State Council statement said the government's investigation must "give the people an honest, responsible account" of the accident, and "take resolute steps to enhance safety."

China's government has trumpeted its expanding network of high-speed rail links as a symbol of rapid technological development. It began acquiring foreign technology in 2004 to accelerate the project and began launching high-speed lines a few years later. In a span of three to four years, those lines in operation now stretch some 8,000 kilometers—a pace some say is too fast and might compromise the safety of travel on those links.

Andrew Mui, a consultant engineer in Singapore at U.S.-based Lightning Eliminators & Consultants Inc., says lightning-strike rods, surge protectors and other equipment are basic for rail systems., nuclear plants and airport radar. What's often neglected, he says, is a program to maintain the systems. He said that while there is a possibility the stopped train may have suffered a critical jolt, his guess is that it was the secondary effect of a lightning strike to the tracks nearby that crippled a power or signaling system. "It could have hit the train or the track, but I suspect it was a secondary effect."

Mr. Mui said no rail system is completely protected from lightning but noted it's important for engineers to isolate mission-critical electronics that handle communications and other signals with equipment designed to reduce likelihood they will absorb electric shocks. While grounding rods are basic and surge protectors can cost as much as $400 or more, a perhaps bigger expense is to organize and maintain the system, he said.

Installing those devices also doesn't shield a high-speed-train system completely from lightning jolts. While Mr. Mui hasn't worked on China's railway, he has helped install systems on Japan's train network and says the risk is that each strike of lightning sends 30,000 amps to 50,000 amps into a system, raising temperatures on critical lines to 5,000 degrees Celsius. While surge protectors shield electronics from the jolts that last milliseconds, the protectors themselves wear out with each strike.

"When you first build these things you'll likely have this equipment. But if nobody bothers to check it, they'll have a false sense of security. But these things fail," Mr. Mui said.

Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com and James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com