Two passenger trains collided in eastern China today, killing at least 70 people and injuring hundreds as carriages jumped the tracks and toppled into a ditch, state media said.
Four hundred people were taken to hospital, with 70 in critical condition, Xinhua news agency said, suggesting the death toll could rise further.
Xinhua said authorities had determined the crash - the worst in China since 1997 - was caused by human error, and that it might have been travelling much faster than the speed limit.
"Although investigations are continuing, some investigators said that T195 was traveling at 131 kilometres per hour before the accident, far in excess of the speed limit of 80 km/h," it added.
One train was en route from Beijing to the seaside resort of Qingdao when the accident occurred in Zibo, Shandong province. The second train was from the resort of Yantai, in Shandong.
One passenger described escaping the wreckage with her 13-year-old daughter through a massive crack in the floor.
"We were still sleeping when the accident occurred," Xinhua quoted the woman, surnamed Yu, as saying. "I suddenly woke up when I felt the train stopped with a jolt. In a minute or two it started off again, but soon toppled."
The accident, which happened at a bend, caused the carriages to topple into a ditch, Xinhua reported, adding that bloodstained sheets and broken Thermos flasks littered the ground.
The director and Communist Party chief of the Jinan Railway Bureau, which oversees the line linking Qingdao and the provincial capital Jinan, had been sacked and would be investigated by the Ministry of Railways, Xinhua said.
Four of the injured were French nationals, three from the same family and one of their friends, all of whom were taken to hospital with bone fractures, the report said, adding no foreigners were among the dead.
"I was hurt in the back but not very seriously. I don't feel well," Xinhua quoted one of the injured French passengers, Joanne Boisson, as saying.