Mom fined for holding up bullet train

A woman who blocked the door of a bullet train to prevent it leaving Hefei Railway Station has been fined 2,000 yuan ($305), police said on Wednesday.

Luo Haili had attempted to delay the train on Friday as her husband had been held up by security. Footage of the incident, which lasted about two and a half minutes, has been widely shared online.

According to police, Luo had booked to travel with her husband and daughter from Hefei, Anhui province, to Guangzhou in Guangdong province. However, they arrived at the station after the ticket gate had closed.

Mother and daughter were able to get through security and reach the train, but Luo’s husband was still negotiating with railway employees when the service was due to depart.

“My husband is coming, why can’t you wait a few seconds?” Luo tells a railway police officer and train attendant in the video as they attempt to remove her from the carriage.

When a security guard on the platform pulls her from the train, she is seen to struggle on the ground and stops the carriage doors from closing with her foot.

The video, which was filmed by another passenger, ends before Luo’s husband arrives, but statements from Luo and the station say all three family members were allowed to board the highspeed service to Guangzhou.

Luo, a primary school teacher in Hefei, has received harsh criticism online, with some accusing her of setting a bad example for young people.

Local railway and education authorities both verified the content of the video. The Luyang district education bureau said on Tuesday that Luo had been suspended from work to allow for an investigation.

Zhang Tingzhu, an expert from the Ministry of Transport, told China Central Television that the train attendant could only ask Luo to disembark, while the police officer in the video should have taken effective measures to remove the female passenger.

“There are also problems with the railway station, as they should not have allowed the passengers through the gates after they had closed,” Zhang added.

WU JUNJIE / CHINA NEWS SERVICE A mist of water vapor clouds a street in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, on Wednesday. The steam rose from the city’s heating pipeline system and cooled due to the low surface temperature. A cold front was forecast to send temperatures falling by up to 10...