Safety check on track for rail
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After riding on the island's high-speed railway, Hu urged government departments to "make all efforts to guarantee its safety" and crack down on corruption related to railway construction.
The safety check is the second measure targeting safety taken by the ministry in a week, and follows the appointment of the new Minister of Railways Sheng Guangzu, who took on the role on Feb 25, replacing Liu Zhijun.
Last Wednesday, Sheng announced that the country's high-speed trains will run at 300 kilometers per hour starting from July 1, instead of the previously announced 350 km/h. The measures are said to make the network operate more safely and provide a wider range of ticket prices due to lower operating costs.
"Two new measures in a week concerning railway safety show that the new minister is paying great attentions to high-speed railway safety," Zhao Jian, a transport professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, said on Sunday.
"High-speed railways have high risks. If there is any accident on a high-speed railway running at 300 km/h, it could kill hundreds of people, and its impact both at home and globally would be huge," he said.
By the end of 2010, China's high-speed rail network reached 8,358 km, the world's longest.
"It (the safety check) is the right thing to do, but not enough," Zhao said, expecting that more measures are likely to be taken by the new railway minister in the coming days.
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