New bridge in south-west China collapses into mountainside

A newly opened bridge in south-west China collapsed on Tuesday, sending slabs of concrete and plumes of dust into the mountainside and water below. No casualties were reported.

Videos of the collapse of part of Hongqi Bridge, in the mountainous Sichuan province, were shared widely on Chinese social media. Authorities had closed the 758-metre-long bridge on Monday after cracks appeared on nearby roads. A landslide on Tuesday caused part of the bridge to collapse completely.
The bridge was part of a national highway linking Sichuan and Tibet, which runs through a seismically active part of China. The highway runs through the area that was devastated by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which killed nearly 70,000 people.

Construction of the Hongqi Bridge was finished earlier this year, according to a social media post by the contractors Sichuan Road and Bridge Group.

In recent decades, China has pursued a construction boom in the most mountainous areas of the country, connecting towns and villages that once took days to travel between. In September, China unveiled the world’s tallest bridge in neighbouring Guizhou province.