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BEIJING - Seventy people were killed and 420 injured early Monday when a passenger train from Beijing careered off the rails and slammed into another train in eastern China, state media reported.
Ruling out terrorism, the official Xinhua news agency said preliminary investigations found human error was to blame, without elaborating.
Chinese authorities have previously voiced concern about terrorist attacks ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
The train was travelling to Qingdao -- the coastal city that will host the Olympic sailing competition in August -- when it derailed, causing the other train to leave the tracks too.
The rail accident, the worst in China in more than a decade, happened near the city of Zibo in Shandong province, Xinhua said.
It reported 70 people were killed in the accident, quoting rescue headquarters in Shandong. It said there were no foreigners among the dead.
The agency said four French nationals were among those injured, one badly.
The other train was on its way to Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu province, from Shandong's Yantai.
Witnesses said many passengers were able to climb out of the wrecked train carriages shortly after the crash, some wrapped up in bed sheets from the sleeper cars to guard against the early morning chill.
"We were still sleeping when the accident occurred," a 38-year-old woman who escaped from the train wreck told Xinhua.
"I suddenly woke up when I felt the train stopped with a jolt. After a minute or two it started off again, but soon toppled."
The woman, who only gave her family name as Yu, managed to escape from the wreck with her 13-year-old daughter through a huge crack in the floor.
Xinhua described chaotic scenes in the minutes after the disaster, the ground littered with blood-soaked sheets and shattered thermos flasks, as passengers sought to save themselves and their loved ones.
"I saw a girl who was trying to help her boyfriend out of the train, but he was dead," said a passenger surnamed Zhang.
At one point so many survivors tried to make phone calls that the mobile communications network was congested and no one could get through, Xinhua said.
More than 700 medical staff and 130 ambulances were involved in rescue efforts, Xinhua said.
A total of 19 hospitals were treating those hurt in the accident, Xinhua reported, while hotels prepared to accommodate the victims' families.
"We have received around 40 injured passengers but nobody died," a nurse at one of Zibo's hospitals told AFP. "Some of them are seriously injured, some slightly injured. Their injuries are external."
The accident happened at 4:41 am (2041 GMT Sunday), Xinhua said, quoting a spokesman from the Shandong provincial government.
Railway Minister Liu Zhijun and Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang have arrived at the scene to oversee rescue efforts, Xinhua said. Liu has demanded an investigation to prevent this type of incident happening again.
The accident has disrupted trains on a major rail route linking Jinan, the capital of Shandong, to Qingdao.
Two high-ranking railway officials were sacked on Monday, just hours after the collision. Chen Gong lost his job as director of the railway bureau of Jinan, while Chai Tiemin, head of the Communist Party in the bureau, was also sacked, Xinhua said.
The two will now be subject to an investigation carried out by the railways ministry, according to the agency.
This is the second serious train accident in Shandong province. In January, a high-speed train ploughed into a group of railway workers in the province, killing 18 people.
In one of the worst rail accidents in recent times in China, 126 people were killed and more than 200 injured when two trains collided in central Hunan province in 1997. - AFP/ir
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