* China - Bridges Are Falling Down
Shanghai,SH,China -The World View blog, by Adam Minter -Aug 29, 2012: -- Early Friday morning, just before dawn, four trucks were driving on a 10-month-old ramp to a bridge in Harbin, a major city in northeast China, when the deck suddenly tilted and collapsed, sending the trucks crashing to the pavement almost 100 feet below... Three people were killed, and five were injured. Photos of the accident indicate that the trucks were carrying heavy cargoes, including stones, and were likely overloaded. But accounts by journalists and photos from the scene also suggest serious problems with the bridge itself. Some images show that key structural components were stuffed with sticks, pebbles and bags of unidentified materials... Nobody in China was surprised by this... Since 2007, China has experienced at least 18 bridge collapses resulting in 135 deaths and untold economic hardship... These are not mere footbridges: They are major, expensive spans connecting key corridors. The almost 330-foot-long section that collapsed on Friday, for example, is part of the more than 9-mile-long, nearly $300 million Yangmingtan Bridge, a span that connects the two banks of Harbin, a city of 10 million people...
What is causing this epidemic of collapse?
In Harbin, some authorities were quick to blame the overloaded trucks and then -- in an act of revealing bureaucratic cowardice -- to claim that they couldn’t locate the contractors responsible for the span (statements subsequently denied by higher-ups)... So too, that these accidents have come in the aftermath of a $586 billion dollar stimulus program focused on new infrastructure -- the largest in the country's history -- which China first announced in 2008, only hints at the disasters to come. Harbin’s collapsed bridge was funded in part by that national stimulus, as was China’s troubled high-speed rail system. What are the others? Sadly, these days it seems that the best way to compile a list might be to watch for the next project to collapse...Labels: infrastructures
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