The new bridge was meant to showcase China’s meeting its infrastructure goals. It only opened to traffic a few months ago.
A major collapse occurred on a new bridge in China’s western Sichuan Province on Nov. 11, less than 10 months after its completion.
According to reports from Chinese media outlets, the Hongqi bridge, which connects the city of Barkam to the Tibetan Plateau, experienced a collapse at around 4 p.m. local time on Nov. 11. At around 3 p.m., workers on a routine patrol noticed cracks on the bridge’s surface and embankments.
An official from Barkam County confirmed the collapse to Chinese state media Global Times, stating that no casualties had been reported. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often censors casualties from man-made disasters around the country, fearing public scrutiny of its one-party rule.
The 758-meter, cantilevered two-lane beam bridge stood roughly 625 meters above the gorge floor, with piers reaching up to 172 meters in height. Finished in mid-January as part of the National Highway 317, it was located in the Liujinkou Reservoir area near the city of Barkam in Aba Prefecture.
The bridge, built by state-backed enterprise Sichuan Road & Bridge Group (SRBG), was part of a larger government initiative aimed at enhancing connectivity and boosting economic development across the geographically challenging landscapes of western China. It was meant to showcase the country’s infrastructure goals and had only reopened to traffic a few months before the collapse.
Debris from a massive landslide struck the bridge’s piers—the vertical supports rising from the foundation and anchoring the structure to the mountainside—causing them to fracture along with the attached superstructure. The collapse severed the deck, the horizontal surface that vehicles travel across, sending it plummeting into the gorge below. Only the segment of the bridge anchored at the left‑bank abutment, the end support structure, remains standing above the water.
The collapse has raised concerns about the safety of newly constructed bridges and the long-term stability of infrastructure in China’s regions prone to landslides. Authorities said they have started an investigation and are working to assess the damage to prevent future incidents.
By Cindy Li
