China Metro Crash Injures More Than 240

I was leaving work on Tuesday afternoon after my Chinese lesson. As usual, a group of teachers walked to the end of long road that leads to the entrance of our school. At the road is where we depart for our separate ways – my roommate and I walk home, a couple teachers grab a taxi, but the majority jump on the metro located directly outside the zoo and our school – Line 10. However, for some reason, the metro was closed. Now it doesn’t happen all the time, but it is not unusual for a station to close temporarily or a line to close for maintenance. I didn’t think much of it, except for the fact that it sucked because I was planning on taking that line out to the French Concession for dinner that night. We began our walk home while a couple other teachers gripped about having to spend more money on a taxi because they couldn’t take the metro. Shortly thereafter, a Chinese assistant teacher from our school informed me that the line was not closed for maintenance, but because two metro trains collided and many people were hurt.
My heart sank, and I immediately thought to myself, I can’t tell my mother. The one thing she always told me was not to ride the metro. Of course her worst nightmare had come true, and right in my backyard. Almost the entire metro system was shut down for quite some time as they pulled hundreds of people from the wreckage, and began to sort out the issues which caused the crash. I went straight home and began a little bit of research about the crash!
Come to find out, this was not the first crash, and unfortunately, it will probably not be the last. Of course there are always issues with new technology and whatnot, but the entire Chinese metro system is somewhat of a controversial subject around here. Not only are the metro lines in Shanghai fairly new, but people believe that the government is trying to develop the system too rapidly and they are cutting vital corners. Officials say that the accident was caused by a signal failure on the operating system during peak travel times causing one metro to glide right into the path of another.
Although the Shanghai metro systems carry nearly 5 million people daily, many people express distrust in the government and the system for a lack of concern for safety, and many refuse to use the metro system.
I can’t say that I have not been shaken up by this a bit. I mean, not only do I use the metro on a very regular basis, but I ride line ten specifically nearly every other day. The metro system is quick and easy, not to mention extremely inexpensive. Where I live is rather far outside of the city. A taxi ride into the city would cost at least 50 Yuan during the day and 100 Yuan at night, while a metro ride to and from is around 6 Yuan.
Anyway, I was hesitant, but that weekend, I just had to ride the metro. I was meeting some friends out in Yu Yuan for dinner, and I was not about to pay 60 Yuan for a taxi ride by myself, so I bit the bullet and jumped on the metro alone. All of the sudden, just as we approached the same sight of the crash less than a week before, the train comes to a stop in the middle of a tunnel. A man’s voice comes over the speaker to make an announcement, but of course only in Chinese. I look around me at the faces to read their expressions, but no one even flinches. There must not be a problem – yet! I waited, and waited, and waited. The same voice makes the same announcement over and over and all I get from it is “…wait a moment…”. We waited in the dark tunnel for nearly 15 minutes (which felt like an eternity) for whatever reason before we began moving again. I believe that I prayed the entire 15 minutes.
Clearly, I am not going to stop taking the metro. I understand that things happen, but believe me, I am much safer in the metro than in a taxi, and the odds of a car accident are much greater than a metro accident (especially with the way people drive here).