The Xinhua News Agency announced today that a bridge collapse in the northeastern city of Harbin was caused by too many overloaded vehicles on the bridge.
Overloaded vehicles were confirmed to have caused the collapse of a ramp leading to a bridge in Harbin in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province in August, the investigation team said Wednesday.
The investigation and evidence show that overloaded trucks caused the Yangmingtan Bridge on-ramp collapse that left three dead and five others injured early in the morning of August 24, according to the team that investigated the accident.
Four trucks fell about 30 meters to the ground.
The ramp was constructed within a period of 90 days at a cost of 7.09 million yuan ($1.13 million).
This, my friends is the reason that I was on the verge of a panic attack on Sunday evening. The van I was in was stuck in dead-stop traffic on a freeway bridge perched 100 feet (or more) above a mountain ravine outside of Beijing.
EVERY OTHER VEHICLE ON THE BRIDGE WAS A SERIOUSLY OVERLOADED TRUCK!
The other thing that about sent me over the edge (so to speak) was the fact that this was the highway (although not the stretch) which last year had experienced a 5-day traffic jam.
The thought of being stuck on the bridge for ten minutes was bad enough…..but five days!!
Fortunately, it ended up just being the ten minutes.
Wow, I was nearly in a panic just reading about your experience. Yikes! I’m glad you’re fine.