This is from The Irish Independent this morning:
HORROR AS 25 DIE IN HIGH-SPEED RAIL ACCIDENT
Passengers catapulted through windows from German test train.
TWENTY-FIVE people were killed yesterday and four others injured after Germany's prestigious Transrapid high-speed train ploughed into another carriage in the worst accident of the vehicle's 35-year history.
Police said the Transrapid, which floats on a monorail through a magnetic levitation system, was travelling at 120mph when it crashed, catapulting many of the 29 passengers on board through the front panorama windows of the driverless train and causing two fires to break out immediately.
Wreckage
Local officials in Emsland, the north west district in which the 30-kilometre test track is located, said late yesterday that one body had been recovered from the wreckage of the train and that the other passengers were still missing some seven hours after the crash. Most were thought to be buried under the train's smashed front section.
"We are assuming that 25 people have been killed," said Hermann Broering, a district councillor. He said that the other passengers had been taken to hospital where they were being treated for their injuries, some of which were serious.
Television pictures of the scene showed fire crews battling to enter smashed carriages that were balanced on a section of track raised some five metres off the ground. Sections of the train's wreckage littered the area and ambulances were busy ferrying the injured to hospital in the surrounding area.
One eyewitness told Germany's N24 television channel that the train rammed the maintenance wagon, pushing it some 700 yards down the track before coming to a halt. "As soon as the train stopped, fires broke out. The front of the train was completely destroyed," he said.
Rudolf Schwarz, of the IABG company which runs the test track said human error appeared to have caused the crash: "We are absolutely devastated by what has happened and we will be doing everything possible to find out exactly what caused the crash," he said.
News of the crash prompted Wolfgang Tiefensee, the German Transport Minister, to break off a visit to China yesterday. His ministry said he was "deeply concerned" and was making straight for the scene to console relatives of the dead and injured.
The incident was expected to deal a serious blow to Germany's hopes of fully developing the Transrapid as a viable form of rail transport at home and as an export.
The train, which is capable of record breaking speeds exceeding 280mph, only operates commercially in China where it provides a link between Shanghai airport and the city's centre.
Last month a fire broke out on one of Shanghai's Transrapid trains, raising concerns about their safety.
Technology for the Transrapid was first developed in Germany in 1934 but the country's first magnetic levitation train was only built as a prototype in 1971. Its developers, Transrapid International had promoted the Transrapid as a train which matched France's now legendary TGV.
Protests
However, attempts in the early 1990s to provide a 180-mile Transrapid rail link between Berlin and the port city of Hamburg, were suspended following protests by the environmentalist Greens party which claimed the train was noisy, used too much energy and was also potentially unsafe.
Opposition to the project led the partially state-owned German rail network, Deutsche Bahn, to invest millions in the development of a conventional high speed rail service between the two cities.
Germany currently has plans to develop the Transrapid as a rail link between Munich and the city's airport.
( Independent News Service)
Tony Paterson
**Personal note:**
I often think of death, e.g., what form mine will take, when it will arrive, the suddenness or slowness of it. I'm convinced it will come in the form of The Big C, considering that's how three of my grandparents went out of this existence. My fourth grandparent is still living, so I'll have to see what contribution she makes to my genetic road map -- you know, the one in which all roads lead to death. Am I being morbid or making you think about something you try to push to the back of your mind? If so, I'm sorry. I know Afterbirth especially doesn't like this topic very much. I think his question about whether or not we are alone in life/the world/the universe is an extension of the desire to know those basically unknowables (philosophical discourse is replete with such a desire), and the ultimate unknowable is death. It will happen to all of us, some before others. When I am lying down with one of my cats, and there's that moment of being utterly at peace looking into the soft eyes of a warm, purring creature who gives comfort as well as taking it, I feel a deep contentment and love that nevertheless always seems to make me think, "I will miss you when you are dead." It makes me feel even more love in that moment, and I try to stop time and stretch it out as much as I am allowed. Before my husband had a cell phone, and he would be out really late doing his gigs, I would be sound asleep in bed, but then I would kind of wake up long enough to roll over and see that he still wasn't home. I had no way of reaching him, so I would start to freak out. I pictured him being pushed onto subway tracks by some crazy person, or mugged, or anything bad. I would begin to picture the fragility of the human body, and most especially, how incomprehensible it is that a person can die from too much blood leaving his or her body. I often have visions of what it might be like to helplessly watch a loved one slowly bleed to death in front of me, or for it to happen to me as someone I love watches in panic. Would I have wise things to say at such a time, or would I be delirious and incoherent? Tragic accidents we read or hear about often raise the spectre of death for us. We think maybe we take stock at that time, and say a word of thanks that we and those we love are still here, safe. And then we wonder... [I[what would it feel like to.... And quickly push such thoughts away.
Another thing that got me started thinking about all this lately was watching "American Masters: Andy Warhol" on PBS Tuesday and Wednesday. I knew Andy was shot by a disturbed woman in his clique of speedfreaks, drag queens, and troubled pretty boys, but I had no idea how it affected him. While he had many neuroses, and was reportedly autistic in his behaviors (he couldn't stand to be touched), he nevertheless acted as if he were this invincible, detatched, aloof, cold God-like puppetmaster. After having been shot at close range by this pissed-off woman, Andy had died for about a minute or two on the operating table, and even though he was revived and went on to do more of his prolific art production, he was forever after terrified of death and God. He couldn't make peace with the idea that he could die, and indeed, that he was getting closer to death every day. He felt as if he had been given a second chance by God to live on the Earth and do whatever he could achieve in life, but he seemed to be deeply frightened more than elated. I basically reject the notion of God. Or rather, I came to reject the God construct as described by Judeo-Christianity. My exposure to Islam made me a little more hopeful, in that certain aspects of it seemed more tolerant, scientific, and contemplative of the elegance of the universe. I actually used to pray and fast as per Islamic tenets, but I got bored with it because I was young and I don't think I ever believed an enlightened, all-powerful, all-knowing God could be as horrible as He appears to be (witness the state of the world). I have had an experience or two in which I was being told that God existed and he wanted to speak to me (yes, drugs were involved). I remember saying, "No, no, no, no, no!" I was terrified that God may actually exist, because then that means there's a Hell, and that I'm a likely candidate to end up there. I feel safest in my belief that when we die, we don't go to heaven and we don't go to hell, because they simply don't exist. And then I heard some theories on dreaming and death, and how as we are dying, we slip into a dream state from which we don't necessarily ever emerge (or expire). I'm still working out the specifics of this theory in my head, but I won't know the true outcome until... I die. But basically, I think that we have no way of knowing whether or not consciousness still lingers on after death. Yes, electrical impulses have ceased to be, nerves no longer relay sensations, and the brain is dead as a piece of steak, but what is the person who has died seeing before that switch is finally cut into the "off" position, and even after? I think a sort of lucid dream is entered, and you're free to take it wherever you like, with some things being out of your control, much as in "real" dreams that you have every night. I think movies like Waking Life and Vanilla Sky touch on this theory, although Vanilla Sky offers the more far-fetched scenario wherein such a service can be bought and pre-programmed by an external, human source. I wonder, though, if you die very suddenly, i.e., it happens so quickly you have absolutely no inkling you're snuffing it, then maybe you're not able to slip into that dream state, and the light is just out in an instant and it's all darkness and oblivion. Another element to be considered is brain chemistry and how almost all human beings tend to see/hear/feel the same things when put under certain conditions. Hence the ubiquitous light at the end of the tunnel scenario, or the deceased loved ones being there to guide us toward that light, or Jesus or God being there to embrace/castigate/etc. In the PBS series How Art Made the World, they talked about research that has been done regarding light stimuli being flashed across closed eyelids, and how the same grid or dot patterns are created in all human test subjects vision. This was being used as a modern explanation for why ancient cave paintings around the world have the same animal or grid-and-dot themes no matter what race made them. Apparently, when humans are kept in darkness for long periods of time, we hallucinate the same patterns, with slight variations. And isn't death the ultimate darkness, the ultimate hallucination; and the one thing we all as living, sentient creatures share in common? Which reminds me of the song lyrics, "Anyone not busy being born is busy dying." I'm sure Dylan had more politically significant ideas in mind when he came up with that line, but I think it also illustrates the commonality of experience we humans have: birth and death. No one remembers what it was like emerging from the birth canal, and no one will be able to reveal what really happens in death. At least not yet. "Science" may come up with those answers, but I doubt I'll be here when -- or if -- they're uncovered.
I have no summation. I have no words of wisdom. I was just wondering in my journal-y way....
HORROR AS 25 DIE IN HIGH-SPEED RAIL ACCIDENT
Passengers catapulted through windows from German test train.
TWENTY-FIVE people were killed yesterday and four others injured after Germany's prestigious Transrapid high-speed train ploughed into another carriage in the worst accident of the vehicle's 35-year history.
Police said the Transrapid, which floats on a monorail through a magnetic levitation system, was travelling at 120mph when it crashed, catapulting many of the 29 passengers on board through the front panorama windows of the driverless train and causing two fires to break out immediately.
Wreckage
Local officials in Emsland, the north west district in which the 30-kilometre test track is located, said late yesterday that one body had been recovered from the wreckage of the train and that the other passengers were still missing some seven hours after the crash. Most were thought to be buried under the train's smashed front section.
"We are assuming that 25 people have been killed," said Hermann Broering, a district councillor. He said that the other passengers had been taken to hospital where they were being treated for their injuries, some of which were serious.
Television pictures of the scene showed fire crews battling to enter smashed carriages that were balanced on a section of track raised some five metres off the ground. Sections of the train's wreckage littered the area and ambulances were busy ferrying the injured to hospital in the surrounding area.
One eyewitness told Germany's N24 television channel that the train rammed the maintenance wagon, pushing it some 700 yards down the track before coming to a halt. "As soon as the train stopped, fires broke out. The front of the train was completely destroyed," he said.
Rudolf Schwarz, of the IABG company which runs the test track said human error appeared to have caused the crash: "We are absolutely devastated by what has happened and we will be doing everything possible to find out exactly what caused the crash," he said.
News of the crash prompted Wolfgang Tiefensee, the German Transport Minister, to break off a visit to China yesterday. His ministry said he was "deeply concerned" and was making straight for the scene to console relatives of the dead and injured.
The incident was expected to deal a serious blow to Germany's hopes of fully developing the Transrapid as a viable form of rail transport at home and as an export.
The train, which is capable of record breaking speeds exceeding 280mph, only operates commercially in China where it provides a link between Shanghai airport and the city's centre.
Last month a fire broke out on one of Shanghai's Transrapid trains, raising concerns about their safety.
Technology for the Transrapid was first developed in Germany in 1934 but the country's first magnetic levitation train was only built as a prototype in 1971. Its developers, Transrapid International had promoted the Transrapid as a train which matched France's now legendary TGV.
Protests
However, attempts in the early 1990s to provide a 180-mile Transrapid rail link between Berlin and the port city of Hamburg, were suspended following protests by the environmentalist Greens party which claimed the train was noisy, used too much energy and was also potentially unsafe.
Opposition to the project led the partially state-owned German rail network, Deutsche Bahn, to invest millions in the development of a conventional high speed rail service between the two cities.
Germany currently has plans to develop the Transrapid as a rail link between Munich and the city's airport.
( Independent News Service)
Tony Paterson
**Personal note:**
I often think of death, e.g., what form mine will take, when it will arrive, the suddenness or slowness of it. I'm convinced it will come in the form of The Big C, considering that's how three of my grandparents went out of this existence. My fourth grandparent is still living, so I'll have to see what contribution she makes to my genetic road map -- you know, the one in which all roads lead to death. Am I being morbid or making you think about something you try to push to the back of your mind? If so, I'm sorry. I know Afterbirth especially doesn't like this topic very much. I think his question about whether or not we are alone in life/the world/the universe is an extension of the desire to know those basically unknowables (philosophical discourse is replete with such a desire), and the ultimate unknowable is death. It will happen to all of us, some before others. When I am lying down with one of my cats, and there's that moment of being utterly at peace looking into the soft eyes of a warm, purring creature who gives comfort as well as taking it, I feel a deep contentment and love that nevertheless always seems to make me think, "I will miss you when you are dead." It makes me feel even more love in that moment, and I try to stop time and stretch it out as much as I am allowed. Before my husband had a cell phone, and he would be out really late doing his gigs, I would be sound asleep in bed, but then I would kind of wake up long enough to roll over and see that he still wasn't home. I had no way of reaching him, so I would start to freak out. I pictured him being pushed onto subway tracks by some crazy person, or mugged, or anything bad. I would begin to picture the fragility of the human body, and most especially, how incomprehensible it is that a person can die from too much blood leaving his or her body. I often have visions of what it might be like to helplessly watch a loved one slowly bleed to death in front of me, or for it to happen to me as someone I love watches in panic. Would I have wise things to say at such a time, or would I be delirious and incoherent? Tragic accidents we read or hear about often raise the spectre of death for us. We think maybe we take stock at that time, and say a word of thanks that we and those we love are still here, safe. And then we wonder... [I[what would it feel like to.... And quickly push such thoughts away.
Another thing that got me started thinking about all this lately was watching "American Masters: Andy Warhol" on PBS Tuesday and Wednesday. I knew Andy was shot by a disturbed woman in his clique of speedfreaks, drag queens, and troubled pretty boys, but I had no idea how it affected him. While he had many neuroses, and was reportedly autistic in his behaviors (he couldn't stand to be touched), he nevertheless acted as if he were this invincible, detatched, aloof, cold God-like puppetmaster. After having been shot at close range by this pissed-off woman, Andy had died for about a minute or two on the operating table, and even though he was revived and went on to do more of his prolific art production, he was forever after terrified of death and God. He couldn't make peace with the idea that he could die, and indeed, that he was getting closer to death every day. He felt as if he had been given a second chance by God to live on the Earth and do whatever he could achieve in life, but he seemed to be deeply frightened more than elated. I basically reject the notion of God. Or rather, I came to reject the God construct as described by Judeo-Christianity. My exposure to Islam made me a little more hopeful, in that certain aspects of it seemed more tolerant, scientific, and contemplative of the elegance of the universe. I actually used to pray and fast as per Islamic tenets, but I got bored with it because I was young and I don't think I ever believed an enlightened, all-powerful, all-knowing God could be as horrible as He appears to be (witness the state of the world). I have had an experience or two in which I was being told that God existed and he wanted to speak to me (yes, drugs were involved). I remember saying, "No, no, no, no, no!" I was terrified that God may actually exist, because then that means there's a Hell, and that I'm a likely candidate to end up there. I feel safest in my belief that when we die, we don't go to heaven and we don't go to hell, because they simply don't exist. And then I heard some theories on dreaming and death, and how as we are dying, we slip into a dream state from which we don't necessarily ever emerge (or expire). I'm still working out the specifics of this theory in my head, but I won't know the true outcome until... I die. But basically, I think that we have no way of knowing whether or not consciousness still lingers on after death. Yes, electrical impulses have ceased to be, nerves no longer relay sensations, and the brain is dead as a piece of steak, but what is the person who has died seeing before that switch is finally cut into the "off" position, and even after? I think a sort of lucid dream is entered, and you're free to take it wherever you like, with some things being out of your control, much as in "real" dreams that you have every night. I think movies like Waking Life and Vanilla Sky touch on this theory, although Vanilla Sky offers the more far-fetched scenario wherein such a service can be bought and pre-programmed by an external, human source. I wonder, though, if you die very suddenly, i.e., it happens so quickly you have absolutely no inkling you're snuffing it, then maybe you're not able to slip into that dream state, and the light is just out in an instant and it's all darkness and oblivion. Another element to be considered is brain chemistry and how almost all human beings tend to see/hear/feel the same things when put under certain conditions. Hence the ubiquitous light at the end of the tunnel scenario, or the deceased loved ones being there to guide us toward that light, or Jesus or God being there to embrace/castigate/etc. In the PBS series How Art Made the World, they talked about research that has been done regarding light stimuli being flashed across closed eyelids, and how the same grid or dot patterns are created in all human test subjects vision. This was being used as a modern explanation for why ancient cave paintings around the world have the same animal or grid-and-dot themes no matter what race made them. Apparently, when humans are kept in darkness for long periods of time, we hallucinate the same patterns, with slight variations. And isn't death the ultimate darkness, the ultimate hallucination; and the one thing we all as living, sentient creatures share in common? Which reminds me of the song lyrics, "Anyone not busy being born is busy dying." I'm sure Dylan had more politically significant ideas in mind when he came up with that line, but I think it also illustrates the commonality of experience we humans have: birth and death. No one remembers what it was like emerging from the birth canal, and no one will be able to reveal what really happens in death. At least not yet. "Science" may come up with those answers, but I doubt I'll be here when -- or if -- they're uncovered.
I have no summation. I have no words of wisdom. I was just wondering in my journal-y way....
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
about the crash that is..
i think of death pretty much everyday and certainly dont consider it a morbid subject, just one that casually ties in with the subject of life itself i guess.
I work with death and sickness everyday too...
a lot of people forget that (because i work at an animal hospital)
but when you are around it all the time (with animals of course moreso than people)
it brings it to the front of your mind pretty much constant...
and now with my oldest cat getting up there in years, i find myself trying to "emotionally prepare" myself for it..
but thats kind of silly, because no matter how much we try to prepare for the loss of a loved one, we still are never quite "ready" for it are we?
i always thought i would either die in a car accident or probably lung cancer (my own doing of course)
i just hope i dont die alone in a nursing home surrounded by strangers.
Sometimes i'll come home from work and drink myself in a stupor from having to deal with back to back grieving families who had to put their pets down, now mind you , like i said ... i pretty much see it everyday, but sometimes we'll have these days when "BAM!".. its one after another
its gets a bit mentally exhausting sometimes..
damn, that was long.. sorry!