French Railway MISTAKENLY Announces Train Explosion, 102 Dead

[coyote]

PARIS — France's railway operator says an "internal error" caused it to post a false statement on its Web site saying a train explosion had killed 102 people.

The announcement on SNCF's home page described an "explosion of unknown origin" on train number 1234 near the town of Macon on a Paris-Dijon line. It cited early estimates "of 102 killed and 380 injured."

Journalists flooded the SNCF with phone calls after the statement Tuesday. The statement was later taken off the site.

An SNCF spokeswoman said the announcement was false and part of an exercise. She said it stemmed from an "internal error" – not a hacker attack. She spoke only on condition of anonymity because of company policy.

more....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/16/french-railway-mistakenly_n_501213.html

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Yikes! Some error!

:wow:

[proteus_lives]

2. Someone is going to get the axe for that "internal error".

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. In France?

I think someone will get a "stern talking-to".

[coyote]

3. Who writes stories...

that didn't happen, for them to be accidentally broadcast?

[Selatius]

5. As far as I know, nobody has yet died on France's high-speed rail network since its inception.

The first high-speed rail links were laid down in the early 1980s. Since then--I saw a little statistic on Modern Marvels on the History Channel--their mass transit grid has logged well over 2,000,000,000 people on its trains.

Not one has died due to mechanical or human error thus far. Impressive, to say the least. It's proof that with stringent safety standards and strong regulation, a publicly owned operation can be safe and efficient.