Happy Valley rides safe: officials

• Source: Global Times
• [09:37 July 02 2010]
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By Zhang Cao

Municipal authorities said Thursday after two days of inspection that all facilities inside the Expo Park and rides at Shanghai Happy Valley are up to snuff, saying that the checks were unrelated to a ride disaster that killed six people at an amusement park in Shenzhen on Tuesday.

The Shanghai Municipal Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau also denied that the inspections carried out at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai were a precautionary measure, following escalating concerns over rider safety at Happy Valley in Songjiang district, which shares the same owner as Ecoventure Valley amusement park in Shenzhen.

"We just carried out routine inspections," Zhao Yang, a press officer for Shanghai Municipal Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau, told the Global Times Thursday. "We do inspections every summer because the hot weather can sometimes make facilities more susceptible to machine breakdowns."

Zhao, however, was unable to answer how often routine inspections are carried out at Happy Valley, saying that the task has previously been given to district authorities. He added that the deputy director of the municipal inspection bureau was responsible for leading the team this time around.

Zhao declined to say more on the issue, but emphasized that the public can rest assured that the rides at Happy Valley are perfectly safe.

"We didn't find any problems with the rides at Happy Valley," he said, adding that the rides at the Shanghai amusement park are different than the ones in Shenzhen.

Meanwhile, OCT Group, which owns Happy Valley and Ecoventure Valley, said Thursday that a preliminary investigation of the Space Journey ride in southern China shows that equipment failure is to blame for riders being flung from their capsules in mid-air, causing six people to plummet to their deaths while another 10 sustained serious injuries.