A deafening sound jolted the small city of Zibo out of sleep at 4:42 am on April 28. Minutes later, people saw what had caused that sound as cars of the T195 Beijing-Qingdao and 5034 Yantai-Xuzhou trains lay scattered across the tracks in the Jaoiji railway division.

The train collision in Shandong province, in fact, awoke the whole country, which has the world`s second busiest railway network. The next two days saw about 3,000 rescuers from nearby hospitals, police and railway stations, and military bases join the rescue work to help the victims of the worst railway accident in China in a decade. The death toll was 72, and the number of injured, 416.

Lu Zhixin, a doctor with No 148 Hospital of the People`s Liberation Army in Zibo, was among the first medical workers to reach the accident site. Lu and his two colleagues got a phone call from the local first-aid center exactly one minute after the accident. Twenty minutes later, his ambulance had reached the spot.

Though Lu had been told about the seriousness of the accident, he was not prepared for what he saw. Several cars had rolled down a dirt ditch 5 m away. Injured passengers were lying everywhere. Many of them were already dead. "Moans were coming from every direction," says Lu. "And once the survivors saw us, almost all of them tried to draw our attention by raising their hands."

Realizing the magnitude of the accident, Lu called back the local first-aid center to warn the authorities that more than 500 people could be in need of immediate medical attention. His team jumped into action instantly, treating the survivors and searching for the seriously injured. Around 5:20 am, Lu`s ambulance carried the first eight seriously wounded passengers to local hospitals.

"When we reached the No 148 Hospital, doctors were already waiting in the emergency department," Lu says. "All the resident doctors were there. Even some retired doctors, out on morning walk, had joined them." Lu was among the 720 medical workers who took part in the rescue operation. About 70 ambulances from 34 medical centers and expert teams assembled by the provincial healthcare bureau were pressed into service, too.

Word of the accident had reached the nearby military camps and police stations even before Lu reached the spot. Around 5:40 am, more than 500 armed policemen stationed in Zibo were called to duty, and sent to the accident site. About 260 soldiers were the next to reach the scene. And within two hours, more than 700 soldiers and 500 armed policemen had joined the rescue work.

The city`s usually quiet roads were teeming with police cars, army vehicles and ambulances. And by 9 pm, all the 416 injured had been sent to hospitals, mostly in Zibo. With the sudden inflow of patients, the local blood bank sent out an emergency call for blood. That promoted more than 600 Zibo residents in the next two days to volunteer to donate blood.

Thirty-one-year-old Wang Fulin and his wife Wang Peina were among the first eight people to be taken to the No 148 Hospital in Lu`s ambulance. The Wangs had taken a train to Beijing on April 27 to buy fashion jewelry for their small boutique in Qingdao. They did not want to waste time in Beijing because they had left their 2-year-old daughter back home. So they had booked their return tickets on the T195 for the April 27-28 journey.

Shaken out of sleep by what sounded like a big explosion and an earthquake-like tremor, Wang Peina found herself upside-down in seconds, her head against the ceiling of the car. Luckily, Wang Fulin was not seriously injured, and managed to find his wife in the dim light of dawn. She could hardly move, and he had to help her scramble out of the carriage through a broken window onto the standing wheat crop outside.

Unaware of the bruise in his neck, Wang Fulin went back into the train to help rescue the other survivors. He heard someone sobbing at the far end of the car. He groped his way toward the source of the sound and found a 4-year-old girl crying, her face covered with blood. She was too shocked to answer any question. She could not even say whether she was traveling with her parents. Wang carried her out of the car, holding her tightly all the way to the hospital.

Lying on a hospital bed three days later, Wang Fulin was still enquiring about the little girl. "Her cry reminded me of my daughter." The No 148 Hospital said it received 80-odd survivors, more than 30 of whom were still being treated yesterday.

Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping concedes that the accident has exposed the mismanagement in the railways. But he denies rumors that Railway Minister Liu Zhijun would be sacked or transferred to another department.

The ministry has blamed the accident on excessive speed of the trains traveling on the section and fired five officials of the Jinan railway bureau, which is in charge of the tracks in that section. The 384-km Jiaoji railway links Beijing to the coastal city of Qingdao, which will host the sailing competition of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Built more than 100 years ago, the link is still one of the busiest in Shandong province.

State Administration of Work Safety Director Wang Jun heads the investigative team set up by the State Council. He says initial findings show the Qingdao-bound train was traveling at 131 km/h, far above the 80 km/h speed limit on the section.

But the public is not convinced. Wang`s official blog received 46,130 visitors, 1,600 of whom posted messages, within a week of the accident. Many netizens blame workers in the Jinan railway bureau for the collision. A number of them even blame the ongoing railway reform in Jinan railway bureau, saying it had created chaos in the management over the past three years.

According to Legal Daily, the Jinan railway bureau changed the speed limit of trains on the fateful stretch thrice between April 23 and 28. But it informed the other bureaus of the changes via regular mail, instead of e-mail. The T195 had already left Beijing when the Jinan bureau sent out its mail notifying that all trains should limit their speed to 80 km/h on the stretch.

"Laying off workers according to their age rather than their contribution and experience has made many workers work in fear," writes a netizen. Such allegations cannot be verified till the investigative team concludes its report.

But irrespective of the outcome of the probe, railway authorities have to take every possible precaution to avoid even a minor accident on the tracks, it said.