Organizers of the ongoing Chinese national winter games imputed the stunning cable car accident in Yabuli on Wednesday to improper operation by the passenger, but many others had different opinions.
The accident took place about 20 minutes after the K90m individual event when Hou Shuangmei, a female broadcaster for the ski jumping results, tried to take the cable car downhill.
The car went so fast that Hou had no time to pull down the protective handrail. Unfortunately, she slided off the cable car at a place which is about five to six meters above the hillside. Hou broke one part of her lumbar vertebra and sufferred severe fractures in thighbone and anklebones.
Zhou Yiyun, the director responsible for course and facilities of the organizing committee in Yabuli of the Winter Games, told a press conference this evening that Hou did not take the cable car at a safe location in the cable stop.
Zhou said that the organizing committee had assigned assistants to every cable car stop to instruct and help passengers use the contraption.
"She (Hou) chose a position to get on the car, which is too far from the proper place," Zhou said. "The assistant in the stop was helping a photographer who just got hurt in taking a cable car, so he could not pay more attention to Hou."
However, the slightly wounded photographer said that the assistant helping him was called from downhill after he was hurt and no one at the stop helped him get on the car.
In addition, no instructive boards or manuals have been found at the stop.
Then Zhou explained, "Maybe the assistant was in the room beside the stop to keep away from the coldness outside."
According to Zhou, the cable car had just been installed in the ski jumping course before the winter games started, and the contraption had passed safety qualification.
However, journalists and the working staffs in the ski jumping competition who had taken the cable car said that they had never found any assistants in the stops to tell how to use it.
"The speed of the car is too fast and there is no speed-down when the car arrives at the stop for passengers to take on," a reporter from Jilin Television said.
Zhou promised that the speed of the cable car would be lowered tomorrow and he would send more assistants to help passengers.
"The cable car is designed and installed only for the working staffs of the competition and athletes. It will not be used for spectators nor the press in next year's world universiade," Zhou noted.
The Yabuli skiing resort has been empowered to host the skiing and biathlon events for the XXIV World University Games in January 2009. To meet the needs of the ongoing 11th national winter games, many constructions and contraptions were completed in one year, which used to be completed in two years.
So far, the injured Hou has been taken to the No. 1 Hospital affiliated to Harbin Medical University.
"Fortunately, the injuries will not cause paralysis," doctor Pan Qi told Xinhua at the hospital, adding that the medical fees has been prepaid by the Helongjiang sports administration.
(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2008)
