Ferrari crash information hushed up

Almost all online information about a car crash on Sunday, in which a man driving a Ferrari was killed and his two female passengers injured, has been deleted overnight, triggering suspicions as to the identity of the deceased driver.

The crash, near Baofu Temple, Haidian district, in the early hours of Sunday killed the driver, reported the Beijing Evening News on Sunday. The two women were hospitalized.

A black Ferrari, driven by a man from west to east along the North Fourth Ring Road access road, crashed into the wall on the southern side of Baofusi Bridge around 4:00 am, then smashed into the guardrail on the roadside.

According to pictures posted online of the aftermath of the crash, the Ferrari was ripped in half, with the front portion crushed and the engine in flames.

The injured women were transferred to hospital by the Beijing Emergency Medical Center (BEMC).

"We received the call around 4:24 Sunday morning. One injured woman, 31 years old, sustained a head injury and a fractured right leg, and she was sent to the [nearby] 306th Hospital of PLA for treatment," the media officer surnamed Li from the BEMC told the Global Times yesterday, without giving any information about the other woman.

The Beijing News reported yesterday that the other injured woman, in her 20s, was sent to another hospital due to severe facial burns.

Online speculation over the accident increased after police would not release details of the driver's identity, and subsequently, microblog postings were deleted from popular websites.

Beijing Public Security Bureau refused to give any information about the crash, such as the cause of the accident and the progress of their investigation.

The 306th Hospital told the Global Times they could not find any information about the injured woman.

Sina deleted all microblog posts which mentioned the accident, and blocked online searches of the word "Ferrari." The Global Times also found that news reports about the crash were deleted from many web portals, such as Tencent's QQ online chat service.

"They make such great efforts to wipe out the information, and it just proves that this young man must have a special background, maybe he's a high-ranking official's son," said a local resident who requested anonymity yesterday.

Children of the wealthy and powerful families are known as China's rich or "second generation," a title earning them notoriety. Many media reports, revealing these children openly flout the law, have raised public debate over social conscience and the gap between the rich and poor.