December 30, 2008
Four men were fatally struck by a bullet train traveling at full speed on Monday in Jinghai County, Tianjin. Five others were injured.
According to today’s Beijing Times, the dead were local auto pedicab taxi drivers who were protesting against the Jinghai county government which had banned the the taxis from operating starting July. It is also reported that the drivers were attempting to block the railway when the D38 train departed from Beijing for Jinan arrived and struck them. The five injured received scratches from the passing train but their conditions were reported as non-life threatening.
December 30, 2009
The local authorities have declared the pedicab taxis as illegal, stating that these taxis pose a safety hazard to passengers and have disturbed market order of the public transport sector.
The big photo on the front page illustrates a successful police rescue effort in which a man who held a masseuse hostage at knife point yesterday in Chuangchun, Jilin Province was shot dead.
Another train accident took place around 10 o’clock yesterday in Beijing: a woman who apparently was trying to cross the railway was struck and killed by a coming train. The cover photo of today’s Beijing News shows that after the accident, a person scales a railway fence near the accident site to save himself a few minutes’ walk.
- Beijing Times (Chinese): Protesting pedicab drivers struck and killed by train in Tianjin