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All three people in the car were killed in the accident on February 16.
There had been no alarm or road barrier to warn the victims of the approaching train at the railway crossing. Over the course of Vietnam's 3,146-kilometer-long transnational railroad, accidents kill hundreds annually. Most accidents occur at railway crossings which lack traffic signals and barriers.
Of the total number of crashes, 90 percent were attributed to illegal roads built across the tracks. Along 170 kilometers of railway running through the central Quang Binh Province, only 53 out of 224 crossings are legally built.
At another stretch of the railway, there are 320 crossings along 180 kilometers of tracks managed by the Saigon Railway Management Company (SRM), most of which are also illegally constructed.
"The illegal roads are often built in places where there exist two parallel roads on both sides of the railway not barricaded by safety fences," said SRM's Director Nguyen Xuan Hoa. "They are shortcuts built by locals."
A recent inspection by the Vietnam Railway Corporation (VRC) shows 4,500 of 6,000 crossing roads over three-meterwide were illegal. Of the 1,500 legal roads, only 531 have sufficient safety measures including signals, alarm, barriers and railway guards; 258 others have automatic warning signals while the remainder only featured signal posts.
There is a countless number of illegal smaller crossings carved out due to spontaneous urbanization along the railway, the VRC said.
Tall task
"The plan to build barriers and send guards to all crossroads is not feasible," said a VRC official. "It takes from VND500 million to VND2 billion (US$30,000-$120,000) to invest in a single crossroad." The National Safety Traffic Committee and the Ministry of Transport recently worked with the VRC to implement immediate solutions, including building speed bumps to decrease road traffic speed near crossing areas and erecting a safety fence for the railway.
The agencies also instructed localities to formulate plans for constructing appropriate crossings and required stringent penalties for violating railway safety corridors. The Ministry of Transport plans to close 4,000 illegal railway crossings by 2012 and construct new safety crossroads.
"Actually, we should have a separate route for the railway by building underground and aboveground passages to solve the problem thoroughly," a ministry official said.
RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
VRC's statistics of railway accidents
- In 2005, there were 527 railway accidents that killed 255 people and injured 424
- In 2006, 517 accidents killed 197 and injured 373
- In 2007, 405 accidents killed 180 and injured 337.
Railway accidents in 2007
- Thirteen died and 25 were injured on February 8 after a bus broke a barrier and hit the SE1 train at Crom crossroad in Ninh Thuan Province.
- A railway guard died after a car pushed him into an oncoming train at Gia Ray - Trang Tao crossroad in Dong Nai Province on March 24.
- Five students died and 47 others were injured after their bus hit the Star-4 train at Ho Nai - Trang Bom crossroad in Dong Nai Province on May 24.
Source: SGGP
June 25, 2008
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