Yangmingtan Bridge, or what’s left of it…

Recently, China shocked the world when its Yangmingtan Bridge fell 100 feet to the ground, which resulted to three deaths and five injured. The Yangmingtan Bridge, located in the city of Harbin, only started operating last November; and at the time, the bridge was considered an impressive feat as it stretched over 300 feet and costed over 300 million dollars. Only, construction that was supposed to take three years finished in just two. And there’s more: since July 2011, at least six other bridges have collapsed.

Clearly, something is wrong with these infrastructures. Since the accidents, government officials have been putting the blame on the trucks for being “too heavy”. However, seeing as this lie is beyond unbelievable, the officials changed their initial statement to that they were “unable to find the contractor responsible [for this accident]”.

Before it collapsed…

In anyone’s point of view, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely corruption. This is especially true when people’s greed for more money never ends and when the government’s laws and regulations are not strictly enforced to prevent these wrongdoings. The company behind this bridge surely have both money and power… they’re just lacking morals. If only the government would start to truly enforce these rules (although unlikely), such unethical behaviour will come to an end.

On a related note, in 2009, a group of contractors decided to keep a one year old stone-made bridge from falling apart with glue. You can check out the photos here.

Image: http://chinadailymail.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/25-yangmingtan-bridge.jpg?w=750

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