A bridge under construction in an ancient Chinese city near Beijing collapsed as workers removed scaffolding from its facade, killing at least 22 people and leaving 46 missing. The 140-foot-high bridge cost $1.6 million and had four decorative stone arches and was scheduled to open as a tourist attraction at the end of August 2007. It collapsed as 123 workers were removing scaffolding from its facade.
The contractor is the state-owned Hunan Road and Bridge Construction (Group) Ltd. Co., or RBC.
Construction accidents in China are frequent, with contractors often opting for shoddy materials to cut costs and using migrant laborers with little or no safety training.
In its annual report on road safety last year, the Ministry of Communications categorized 6,300 of the country's bridges as dangerous because of serious damage to their structural components, information reported in the China Daily newspaper. Many of the country's new bridges were being built too quickly and were poorly designed.
The Fenghuang bridge collapse was among China's worst in recent memory. On June 15, a bridge in south China's Guangdong province collapsed when a cargo vessel loaded with sand rammed into it, killing nine people. That bridge was built in 1988.
In January 1999, a pedestrian bridge spanning the Qi River collapsed three years after it was built. Forty people died and another 14 were injured. Following the accident, a local county deputy party secretary was sentenced to death for accepting a bribe from a childhood friend in exchange for the bridge-building contract.
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