Train crash cause

Poor management, not faulty signals, caused the deadly high-speed rail crash in China this summer than killed at least 40 people, according to the report released Monday by a panel convened to investigate to the accident four months ago.

The Wenzhou high-speed rail disaster not only killed and injured dozens, but it called into question the safety of China's entire high-speed railway network. Critics wondered whether a corrupt railways ministry had moved forward too quickly and too carelessly in building the world's largest high-speed train network in just a few short years. Initial investigations focused on faulty signals, which would have affected the potential safety of dozens of other lines that use the same signals, but the investigation team put the crash down to human error instead.

“There weren’t any problems found with the train’s signal system according to results from our investigation and from a simulated recreation of the accident; the management over the personnel and facilities is to be blamed as the major cause,” Wang Mengshu, deputy director of the investigation team, told the Beijing Times, according to a translation in the Global Post newspaper.