June 30, 2009
Today’s front pages were dominated by two major transportation accidents that took place yesterday.
Today’s Modern Jinbao, a Ningbo-based newspaper, features a large photograph of a a road bridge in Tieli, Heilongjiang Province, that collapsed yesterday morning, causing eight vehicles and 21 passengers to fall into the river. Four have been confirmed dead.
The bridge was built in 1973. According to a primary investigation, an overloaded heavy-duty truck weighing about 60 tons is believed to have been the last straw for the aged structure.
The other accident, which appears in a small photo at the bottom of the page, took place in Chenzhou, Hunan Province. A failed brake system caused the K9017 passenger train to plow into another stopped train as it was approaching the station. The K9017 subsequently derailed, knocked down a wall, and hit a building before coming to a complete standstill.
Among the three people who died in the accident, two were train passengers and the other was a resident of the building the train hit. In addition, more than 60 other people were wounded.
The top headline of the newspaper reports that National Development and Reform Commission, the government agency responsible for domestic energy pricing, raised gasoline and diesel prices by 600 yuan per ton, starting at 12:00 am this morning. This is the second time this month that the NDRC has raised fuel prices.
Rumors about a sale of French fashion brand Pierre Cardin have been buzzing around recently. In the front-page sidebar, a headline reports that several Zhejiang and Guangdong companies are in talks with Pierre Cardin.
Inside the newspaper, an article reports that a recent anti-smuggling campaign in Russia has taken a heavy toll on the Zhejiang importers doing business there. For about two decades, Chinese businessmen got their goods into Russia through legally dubious channels, including bribing Russian customs agents.
Among the two billion US dollars worth of smuggled goods that Russian authorities claim have been seized, the paper estimates that 1.5 billion belonged to Zhejiang businessmen.