POOR management has been blamed for the deadly bullet train crash in Wenzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province - overturning a preliminary investigation that held a defective signaling system to be responsible.
"The local railway authority didn't use the equipment correctly, leading to a malfunction. After the equipment broke down, staff operated it improperly, causing one train to rear-end a stalled one, leaving 40 dead and around 200 injured," said Wang Mengshu, deputy director of the team who investigated the July accident, according to yesterday's Beijing Times.
The signaling system was in working order and had been used on many other high-speed railway routes without any problems, Wang said.
Wang told the newspaper that the local railway authority had failed to maintain the system properly, causing it to fail after multiple lightning strikes in the lead up to the crash.
"The weather was a minor contributor and the main issue is their poor management," Wang said.
The completed investigation report was submitted to the State Council for approval in September, the newspaper quoted Wang as saying.
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