Not an easy spring for China

Xinhua reports:

Death toll rises to 60 in east China train collision

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.

The Jinan Railway Bureau based in Shandong said 57 people were killed on the spot and three died at hospitals.

At least 70 of the injured passengers were in critical condition, a spokesman with the bureau said.

Among the injured passengers were four French nationals, all of whom have been hospitalized with bone fractures, a spokesman with the provincial foreign affairs office said.

Their identities were not known.

The casualties were from two passengers trains, one of which was en route from Beijing to Qingdao, a famous summer resort in Shandong and venue of the Olympic sailing competition, and the other, from Shandong's Yantai to Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province.