Hongqi Bridge, a newly finished structure in the mountainous Sichuan province of China, collapsed partially on Tuesday following a landslide. The bridge was crucial to the national highway that links Sichuan and Tibet. It crosses a widely recognized seismically active region, infamous for its vulnerability to natural disasters. Officials shuttered the bridge Monday after large fissures formed on nearby highways. Given the nature of these cracks, they led to significant concerns about the safety of the structure.
Measuring 758 meters long, Hongqi Bridge was finished in value earlier this year by the Chengdu-based Sichuan Highway and Bridge Group. The route of the national highway passes through a region that was heavily affected by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Whether by sword or virus, this tragedy took the lives of almost 70,000 people. Videos of the dramatic collapse circulated quickly on Chinese social media platforms. They ignited national outrage and brought forth trust issues and fear of infrastructure safety in the region.
The highway project helps sustain a bigger domestic Chinese construction boom. This building boom has accelerated in recent decades. This effort hopes to improve digital connections in the nation’s most challenging landscapes. More importantly, it will open the towns and villages that have been cut off and hard to get to for so long. That doesn’t mean that Hongqi Bridge will be the tallest bridge in the world for long — that title recently passed to a new bridge in neighboring Guizhou province. It’s about to change dramatically, with the arrival of this important new missing transportation link.
It was this landslide that triggered the collapse, shocking both local officials and community members. Not surprisingly, they are now completely terrified about continued dangerous threats posed by geological instability in the region. Given Sichuan’s vulnerability to seismic activity, the lack of structural integrity for these recently built bridges and roads is raising new concerns over their safety. The criticism from Congress was over what measures the government took to ensure safety during construction and to monitor these infrastructures long term.