A passenger train en route from Beijing to Qingdao city in eastern China derailed and hit another train early on Monday, causing heavy casualties, witnesses and a government spokesman confirmed. The death toll has climbed to over 60 and more than 400 were hospitalized after an early Monday train collision in east China’s Shandong Province, railway authorities confirmed.     Passenger train T195, en route from Beijing to the famous summer resort Qingdao, derailed in the city of Zibo in Shandong Province at 4:43 a.m. About 10 carriages toppled into a ditch, a witness told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The derailed train hit train 5034, which ran from Shandong’s Yantai city to Xuzhou in the eastern Jiangsu Province, a spokesman with the Shandong provincial government confirmed. He said the collision caused the second train to veer off its tracks, too.

    Medical workers who are at the site for rescue work said heavy casualties were reported from both trains, but it was hard to make an immediate headcount. “I think dozens were injured or killed,” a doctor said.

    Witnesses said many passengers had climbed out the wrecked train cars shortly after the accident. Some had wrapped up themselves in bed sheets from the sleeper cars in the early morning chill.

    The accident occurred in Hejiacun village, sandwiched between Zhoucun district and Wangcun railway station in the suburbs of Zibo, and about 70 kilometers east of the provincial capital Jinan.

    Dozens of injured passengers were being treated at the Zhoucun People’s Hospital. “Most are slight cases and more people are being sent in every hour,” a hospital worker told Xinhua in a telephone interview. “Some of our medical workers have gone out for rescue work, too.”

    The hospital, about 30 minutes drive from the site of the accident, is one of several hospitals involved in the rescue work.

    The accident has disrupted two-way traffic on the Jinan-Qingdao Railway, a pivotal provincial rail link.

    This is the second major railway accidents taking place in Shandong this year.

    In January, a high-speed train from Beijing to Qingdao ran down a group of railway workers in Shandong Province, leaving 18 dead and nine others injured. 4

    The workers were relocating the tracks when the train ran into the work site in Anqiu City of Shandong.

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