In the early morning hours of the 22nd, around 3 a.m., a construction rope broke on the Jianzhong Yellow River Grand Bridge, part of the Qinghai section of the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway in China. As of that evening, the accident had resulted in 12 deaths and 4 missing.
At the time of the incident, 15 construction workers and a site supervisor from the project department were working. The project is being undertaken by the Seventh Company of China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group.
According to a worker involved in the construction, the bridge was originally scheduled to be joined up on August 26.
The worker told a Red Star News reporter that the bridge was initially planned to be joined up on August 26, but unexpectedly an accident occurred on Friday—"just four or five meters away from completion."
Video footage shows that at the top of the bridge's steel frame structure, the stones that had been laid have come loose, the guardrail has tilted, and part of the bridge deck has collapsed.
Public information indicates that the Jianzhong Yellow River Grand Bridge has a total length of 1,596.20 meters, making it currently the world's largest-span double-track continuous steel truss arch railway bridge, as well as the first steel truss arch railway bridge in China to span the Yellow River.