On July 24 night, a bullet train hit another express which lost power following a lightning strike, state media said, in the country's deadliest rail disaster since 2008.

The power failure knocked out an electronic safety system designed to alert trains about stalled locomotives on the line.

As rescue teams and firefighters with excavators searched for survivors, state television said two young boys had been pulled alive from the wreckage.

There were 1,630 passengers on both trains, which collided on a bridge near the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, some 860 miles south of Beijing.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, visiting the disaster scene, "pledged that the investigators will find out the cause of the accident and those responsible will be seriously punished according to the law," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescuers found eight more bodies on July 24 afternoon, bringing the death toll to 43, Xinhua said, though Railways Ministry spokesman Wang said the figure was actually 35.

Wang also said no foreigners had died, denying an earlier report from the semi-official China News Service which said two foreigners were among the dead.

Rail is the most popular method of long-distance transport in China and trains are usually crowded with as many as 1,000 passengers.

In 2008, an express train traveling from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao derailed and collided with another train, killing 72 and injuring 416 people.