ZHOUCUN, Shandong -- Overspeeding was responsible for Monday's deadly train collision in east China that killed 70 and injured 416 others, the investigation panel set up by the State Council said Tuesday.

A high-speed train from Beijing to Qingdao, coded T195, veered off the rails in the city of Zibo at about 4:40 a.m. on Monday. The derailed coaches smashed into another train, coded 5034, which was coming in the opposite direction along an adjacent line.

Investigators had said Monday that T195 was traveling at 131 kilometers per hour before the accident, far over the section's speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour.

Two top officials of the Jinan Railway Bureau, bureau director Chen Gong and Communist Party chief Chai Tiemin, were sacked just hours after the accident. They face investigations by the Ministry of Railways.

So far, the identities of 26 people killed in the fatal train collision on Monday morning in east China's Shandong Province which left 70 dead and 416 injured have been confirmed.
The victims, 16 male and 10 female whose names can be found on the portal website of Sina.com, are mostly locals or from north and northeast China, including at least two Beijing residents.

Among the victims, two are college students studying in Beijing -- 25-year-old Wang Tingting at the University of International Business and Economics and 23-year-old Huang Hao at the Renmin University of China. The 47-year-old Zheng Changling was identified as the policeman on duty on the train and 42-year-old Zhao Jingwei a reporter with the local Zibo Television Station.

Eight wounded passengers are also listed on the website, with their injuries specified.
Sources at a meeting of the State Council investigation panel said the panel, headed by Wang Jun, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was set up Tuesday morning in Zibo City, Shandong.

"All the injured have been hospitalized and the dead have been transferred to local funeral homes," said Wang at the meeting.

"The accident site has been cleaned up and the stranded passengers evacuated," he added.