All too common disasters are a sad reality of life

Another day, another disaster - it often seems that way on the mainland.

Floods, chemical spills, major fires and mine collapses occur with such regularity, it is hard not to become numb to the news.

Little wonder, then, that Tuesday's crash on the Shanghai subway has been met with plenty of anger but depressingly little surprise. It is just 10 weeks today since the fatal high-speed train crash in Wenzhou, and the images of that disaster - in which at least 40 lives were cut short - remain fresh in people's minds.

Thankfully, there were no deaths in this week's collision. However, with 284 injuries - a third of them serious enough to warrant admission to hospital - out of 500-odd passengers, this was no minor mishap. A 15-member investigation team has been charged with uncovering how one train ran into the back of a stationary train on a track that is supposed to have fail-safe systems to prevent just that. But it is anyone's guess when they will finally make their findings public.

In any case, the official facts are largely irrelevant, from the perspective of the average Shanghai resident. The court of public opinion convened in quick session as soon as news of the collision spread and swiftly reached a damning verdict. And the accusing finger was pointing unwaveringly in the government's direction.

On the street above Laoximen station, where the accident occurred, the taste of rage hung thick in the air as throngs of onlookers gazed at the rescue operation. With no information whatsoever, aside from the emergency services' massive response, those milling around convinced one other that the deaths would number in three figures, but would never be made public. Such is the level of public distrust in the government that official accounts were being rejected as fabrications even before they had been issued. Attempts in state media to shunt the blame onto the Sino-French joint venture that produced the signalling equipment and rolling stock on the line - touted on Casco Signal's website as being 'the first driverless and high-density line in China' - fell flat.

There was a signalling failure on the line around 40 minutes ahead of the crash, which resulted in extensive delays as operators switched to conducting the trains manually. It turns out, though, that this was due to a power cut of some kind, not because the actual signalling equipment had malfunctioned.