Two people were killed and four injured when a bridge being demolished collapsed unexpectedly in Kunming on Tuesday evening.
An initial investigation suggested the demolition teams had not followed safety rules.
Some residents, however, blamed the city government, saying its plan to build 18 highway flyovers at once was reckless.
A source from the construction team said the workers were under stress because residents disliked the project and verbally abused them. However, he said, they could not stop work because they had to meet deadlines.
“The construction plan had almost paralysed all the traffic. People were complaining and that puts the construction teams under tremendous pressure. Their resources are stretched too thin,” he said.
The accident occurred at around 7.30pm when several workers were in the process of demolishing the Xiaozhuang bridge, located east of the city’s second ring road, according to China News Service. The collapsed section was about 200 metres long, according to local media.
The dead include the driver of a van whose vehicle was under the bridge when the accident occurred. His car was crushed by the collapsed section, a news website quoted witnesses as saying.
Four injured victims, all working on the bridge before it collapsed, were taken to the Xinhua Tongren hospital where they were in a stable condition.
At least five major roads were affected, snarling traffic for almost 3km, witnesses said. Traffic was restored after two hours.
The demolition was part of the city’s one-year project to tackle traffic congestion, covering 30 schemes at a cost of 7 billion yuan (HK$7.9 billion).
Seven bridges on the west of the second ring road will be built, while 11 on the east, including the Xiaozhuang flyover, are being demolished and replaced with wider bridges.
All these facilities will be finished by November next year, according to a plan by Kunming party secretary Chou He .
Mr. Chou said the plan, which started in October, would shorten travel times from the second ring road to the city centre, but residents said they were inconvenienced because construction and demolition started at the same time.
“Cars have to travel at low speed as the main bridges are closed and roads are dug up for the project,” a resident surnamed Xu said, adding that travelling to the city centre from the southeast of the second ring road by car used to take 45 minutes but now took more than four hours.
He also said the noise coming from the construction sites at night made him unable to sleep and that he had filed two complaints to the government last week.
“We are very angry because the project doesn’t make sense. It may help the city in the future but why can’t it be organised more reasonably?” he asked.
He also worried that the new infrastructure might be shoddily built and cause more accidents.
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Two killed as bridge collapses in Kunming
Kelly Chan
11 December 2008
Two people were killed and four injured when a bridge being demolished collapsed unexpectedly in Kunming on Tuesday evening.
An initial investigation suggested the demolition teams had not followed safety rules.
Some residents, however, blamed the city government, saying its plan to build 18 highway flyovers at once was reckless.
A source from the construction team said the workers were under stress because residents disliked the project and verbally abused them. However, he said, they could not stop work because they had to meet deadlines.
“The construction plan had almost paralysed all the traffic. People were complaining and that puts the construction teams under tremendous pressure. Their resources are stretched too thin,” he said.
The accident occurred at around 7.30pm when several workers were in the process of demolishing the Xiaozhuang bridge, located east of the city’s second ring road, according to China News Service. The collapsed section was about 200 metres long, according to local media.
The dead include the driver of a van whose vehicle was under the bridge when the accident occurred. His car was crushed by the collapsed section, a news website quoted witnesses as saying.
Four injured victims, all working on the bridge before it collapsed, were taken to the Xinhua Tongren hospital where they were in a stable condition.
At least five major roads were affected, snarling traffic for almost 3km, witnesses said. Traffic was restored after two hours.
The demolition was part of the city’s one-year project to tackle traffic congestion, covering 30 schemes at a cost of 7 billion yuan (HK$7.9 billion).
Seven bridges on the west of the second ring road will be built, while 11 on the east, including the Xiaozhuang flyover, are being demolished and replaced with wider bridges.
All these facilities will be finished by November next year, according to a plan by Kunming party secretary Chou He .
Mr. Chou said the plan, which started in October, would shorten travel times from the second ring road to the city centre, but residents said they were inconvenienced because construction and demolition started at the same time.
“Cars have to travel at low speed as the main bridges are closed and roads are dug up for the project,” a resident surnamed Xu said, adding that travelling to the city centre from the southeast of the second ring road by car used to take 45 minutes but now took more than four hours.
He also said the noise coming from the construction sites at night made him unable to sleep and that he had filed two complaints to the government last week.
“We are very angry because the project doesn’t make sense. It may help the city in the future but why can’t it be organised more reasonably?” he asked.
He also worried that the new infrastructure might be shoddily built and cause more accidents.
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