Bridge Collapse Kills Dozens

Source: Global Times

 
Huge swathes of rock and mud sliding from Ermanshan Mountain strike Shuanghe Village, Ya'an City, Sichuan Province Tuesday. Photo: Courtesy of the regional authority

The search continued Tuesday for 13 people missing following the collapse of a bridge amid heavy floods in central Henan Province that have killed at least 28, officials said.

A total of 42 people fell into the torrent Saturday when the Yi River Bridge collapsed. One person survived, and 28 bodies were recovered from the river, Li Yan, an official from Luanchuan County told the Global Times.

Li Xianghong, who survived, recounted the moment when the bridge collapsed.

"It all happened in a instant. The southern side of the bridge where I was standing collapsed first. In several seconds, dozens of pedestrians around me, including my nephew, were plunged into the water," he told the Dahe Daily.

He said he hung onto a willow tree 200 meters downstream and was hauled to the bank by villagers with a rope.

A day after the accident, the Luanchuan County government apologized for the deaths and claimed responsibility for the bridge collapse in a letter published Monday in a local newspaper, the Luoyang Daily.

An initial investigation shows the bridge collapsed after fallen tree trunks became stuck underneath it, blocking the passage of the raging floodwaters, according to Xinhua.

Li, the local official, said that the cause of the accident was still under investigation and that they are now focused on rescue work, which has shifted downstream. He said it is most likely that the flood, which is unprecedented in the area, contributed to the collapse.

The foundation of the 153-meter-long bridge was made of stone. A sign at the northern end of the bridge recorded when it was built and maintained, but the sign was removed after the bridge col-lapsed, villagers told the Dahe Daily.

The bridge was repaired in 2009 after it had partially collapsed. Only white marble handrails were added, and the surface was paved with asphalt, but no reinforcement was made to the bridge's foundation, villagers were quoted by the Dahe Daily as saying.

The collapse of bridges has been a common occurrence in China. The collapse of Fenghuang bridge in Hunan Province was among China's worst in recent memory, as it killed 64 people and injured 22.

An investigation revealed that shoddy building materials and poor construction storywere behind the collapse.

Cheng Daye, an engineer at the Building Construction Test Center at the Central Research Institute of Building and Construction, told the Global Times, "Many structures including bridges are built in haste with shoddy construction materials nowadays, making them more vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods."

A large number of bridges were built 20 or 30 years ago with the capacity to handle a much lighter traffic flow than today's flow, he added.

Huang Xingchun, a professor specializing in bridge engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni-versity, told the Global Times Tuesday that heavy floods could have contributed to the collapse of the bridge if it was badly constructed.

 
A bridge collapsed in Luanchuan county, central China's Henan Province. Photo: CFP

Landslide leaves 21 missing

Meanwhile, a landslide in southwest Sichuan Province left 21 people missing Tuesday as flash floods forced officials to suspend boat traffic through the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam.

About 120,000 cubic meters of rock and mud slid down Ermanshan Mountain near Shuanghe Village, Ya'an City, at around 5 am Tuesday, leaving 21 people missing and 91 collapsed houses, according to a statement by the local government e-mailed to the Global Times.

Rescuers combing the rubble pulled out three survivors.

Weeks of torrential rains have hit large swaths of central and southern China in recent weeks, flooding riverside towns, causing landslides and mudflows and raising key rivers to dangerous levels.

Shipping services through the Three Gorges Dam were suspended at 10 pm Monday, for the second time this month, as engineers at the dam expect more floods.

The water flow through the dam is expected to peak at 56,000 cubic meters per second today, according to a Three Gorges Corporation official.

More than 100 vessels are waiting on either side of the dam. Shipping will resume once the rate drops to 45,000 cubic meters per second, the official said.

On Monday, a pre-dawn mud flow near the China-Myanmar border in Southwest China's Yunnan Province left 11 injured and another 11 missing. The search for the missing, including a 4-year-old Chinese girl and four Myanmar nationals, was ongoing.

A total of 333 people have been killed in rainstorms and floods across China since July 14, while 300 others are still missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Tuesday.

Rainstorms have been lashing provinces such as Shaanxi, Sichuan and Henan, triggering floods and landslides, resulting in heavy losses of life and property, a ministry spokesman said.

As of 4 pm Tuesday, the rainstorms and floods had affected more than 40 million people, destroyed 140,000 homes and 417,000 hectares of crops, and had led to the relocation of 3.1 million people.

Direct economic losses from the rainstorms and floods were estimated to be 154.1 billion yuan, according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

(By Song Shengxia)

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Editor: Chen Minjie