Doubts about China's breakneck plans to expand high-speed rail across the country have been underscored by a bullet train wreck that killed at least 36 people.

Railways Minister Sheng Guangzu has apologized to the victims of Saturday's crash, and their families. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said two U.S. citizens were among the dead.

A train rammed into the back of another one that stalled after being hit by lightning in China's deadliest rail accident since 2008. Six carriages derailed and four fell about 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 meters) from a viaduct. More than 190 people were injured.

The Railway Ministry and government officials haven't explained why the second train was apparently not warned there was a stalled train in its path.

One expert said he thought human error may have been involved.

"I think the problem may have come from the mistakes of dispatching management, instead of technological failure," said Qi Qixin, a professor at the Transportation Research Institute of Beijing University of Technology. "The system should have an ability to automatically issue a warning or even stop a train under such circumstances," he said.

The accident is the latest blow to China's bullet train ambitions. Designed to show off the country's rising wealth and technological prowess, the national prestige attached to the high-speed rail project is on a par with China's space program.

Beijing plans to expand the high-speed rail network — already the world's biggest — to link far-flung regions and is also trying to sell its trains to Latin America and the Middle East.

Last month, it launched to great fanfare the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed line, whose trains can travel at a top speed of 186 miles (300 kilometers) per hour. The speed was cut from the originally planned 217 mph (350 kph) after questions were raised about safety.

In less than four weeks of operation, power outages and other malfunctions have plagued the showcase 820-mile (1,318-kilometer) line. The Railways Ministry previously apologized for the problems and said that summer thunderstorms and winds were the cause in some cases.

Official plans call for China's bullet train network to expand to 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) of track this year and 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) by 2020.

China's trains are based on Japanese, French and German technology, but the manufacturers are trying to sell to Latin America and the Middle East. That has prompted complaints that Beijing is violating the spirit of licenses with foreign providers by reselling technology that was meant to be used only in China.

Saturday's accident involved the first-generation bullet trains, which were launched in 2007 and have a top speed of 155 miles (250 kilometers) per hour — slower than the new Beijing to Shanghai trains.

The tragedy pummeled railway shares with China Railway Group sliding 7.7 percent. The high-speed rail woes added to negative sentiment from the U.S. debt deadlock, sending the Shanghai Composite Index down 3 percent to 2,688.75.

The Ministry of Railways said in a statement on its website Monday that the accident had killed 36 people and injured 192.

The crash happened when a bullet train traveling south from the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou lost power in a lightning strike, stalled and was hit from behind by a second train in Wenzhou city.

Three top officials at the Shanghai Railway Bureau were sacked after the accident, and state-controlled media have raised questions, especially as rail travel moves hundreds of millions of people a year.

In an editorial entitled 'Train crash lesson for railway progress,' the Global Times said the accident should be "a bloody lesson for the entire railway industry in China."

The newspaper said the collision casts doubt on China's high-speed railway expansion plans because the country "lacks experience" as it seeks to join the top ranks of railway engineering.

It said China's high-speed railway has become "the newest target of public criticism," adding the accident should lead to "safer, not slower, railway transportation."

China's transportation authority ordered local departments at an emergency meeting Sunday to launch thorough safety overhauls to "resolutely curb" severe traffic accidents, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The order follows a number of recent accidents, including a fire on a long-distance bus on Friday that killed 41 people.

State broadcaster CCTV reported Monday that a 2-year-old girl pulled from one of the derailed carriages 21 hours after the crash had undergone a three-hour operation. It said she had suffered lung, kidney and leg injuries and is now in intensive care. Her parents died in the crash.

In April 2008,a regular-speed train traveling from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao derailed and crashed into another train, killing 72 people and injuring 416.

British actor Rhys Ifans, who portrays the villain Lizard in the upcoming Hollywood movie "The Amazing Spider-Man," was arrested and cited for battery at the pop culture gathering Comic-Con on Friday evening.

"He was abusive, belligerent and aggressive, and shoved a female security guard," San Diego police spokeswoman Lt. Andra Brown said in a statement on Saturday.

Brown told Reuters a member of Ifans' "entourage" did not have proper identification to enter Comic-Con, a gathering of science-fiction fans and comic book lovers. for a promotional event to tout the upcoming "Spider-Man" movie.

Ifans used his hand to push his way past security, Brown said. He cursed the staff, hurled insults at the United States and loudly complained: "I don't live here," she said.

The police spokeswoman added that Ifans' breath "smelled like alcohol" but he was not cited for public drunkenness.

The guard who was pushed, however, made a citizen's arrest, leading San Diego police to issue Ifans a citation for misdemeanor battery. He was released, and the San Diego City Attorney will decide whether to take further action.

Sony Pictures, the studio behind the "Spider-Man" movies, issued a statement to showbiz website TheWrap saying Ifans "deeply regrets the incident."

The movie is a big-budget, special effects Hollywood flick, and the studio will have a lot of money riding on Spidey (played by Andrew Garfield) when he and Ifans' Lizard crawl into theaters next year.

Ifans has starred in numerous films such as "Notting Hill," "Little Nicky" and "Pirate Radio" during a career that has spanned two decades.

A paramilitary trooper killed a sub-inspector and injured a constable after a heated exchange of words over a cooking dispute in Bihar's Kishanganj district, police said Monday.

Hari Singh, in-charge of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) mess, killed sub-inspector Khelan Singh and injured Birbal Ram late Sunday at a SSB camp at Langraduba village.

Birbal was rushed to a hospital in Silliguri in West Bengal. Hari Singh is on the run.

Suresh Kalmadi, former chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, who has been lodged in Tihar jail on charges of corruption, is suffering from dementia, a condition that leads to memory loss, which may have a bearing on his ongoing trial.

Kalmadi was taken to Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Hospital where a MRI scan was conducted on him. The result of the test show that he was suffering from dementia, Deputy Inspector General of Tihar RN Sharma said.

A member of Kalmadi's family mentioned in the medical history submitted to jail authorities that his dementia was at a preliminary stage, which suggests that the MP was ailing much before he was arrested in the ongoing CWG scam probe.

The impact of his mental condition would be determined only after it was analysed properly, legal experts said.

PTI reports noted lawyer KTS Tulsi saying, "it's a general trend that people take such recourse. What needs to be established is when the disease has affected him. Only after that one can decide whether it will have bearing on the case or not."

"Now if it(dementia) had settled at the time of offence, it may have a bearing on his culpability. As per the law, a demented person suffers from a global memory loss. If there is a memory loss at the time of the commissioning of the offence, it is not possible to have a fraudulent intention," PTI quoted Tulsi.

Kalmadi was arrested April 25. The CBI on May 20 filed its first charge sheet in the case against Kalmadi and 10 others, describing the former CWG chief as a prime accused and the mastermind in a corruption case related to financial irregularities in awarding a Rs.141 crore contract for timing, scoring and result system for the October 2010 sporting event.