Bridge collapses in China

[Raph's Girl]

At least 20 people were killed when a road bridge being built across a river in southern China collapsed on to another highway, state media and a witness said on Tuesday.

At least 39 people were missing and witnesses said the death toll was likely to rise.

Twenty-two people were injured when the 320-metre (1,000-foot) concrete arc bridge spanning the Jiantuo river in Fenghuang county, Hunan province, collapsed on Monday during the evening rush hour, Xinhua news agency said.

Some 400 police had been sent to the scene to keep order, Xinhua said.

Pictures showed bulldozers and rescue workers picking through a massive pile of debris stretching between two hills at the banks of the river.

"I saw a lot of bodies lying on the road, some of them were construction workers, and some were passers-by ... blood was everywhere," Yang Shunzhong, a witness, told Reuters.

"A car was crushed flat under the bridge, it was so ruined that I could not even tell the size of the car," he said by telephone.

Police told Yang that they had found about 60 bodies, and more rescue workers were searching for the missing buried amid the ruins and in the river below.

Yang said "people on the scene" said the death toll could rise substantially.

"A lot of women and children were on the scene, crying and looking for their families or friends," Yang added.

The bridge was being built in Fenghuang, a scenic region popular with tourists in the western part of China's Hunan province.

Part of the bridge collapsed across a highway linking Fenghuang county to an airport in neighboring Guizhou province's Tongren region, according to a notice posted on the local government Web site on Tuesday.

It was scheduled for completion at the end of this month.

The accident was under investigation, Xinhua news agency said, and Hunan's provincial governor, Zhou Qiang, and Vice-governor Xu Xianping were on their way to the site.

The bridge's collapse came as state media reported that China would fix more than 6,000 damaged or dangerous bridges across the country. A bridge collapse in June in the southern province of Guangdong killed nine people.

An editorial in the China Daily warned that thousands of the country's bridges had been categorized as "unsafe."

"If left unrepaired these bridges may crumble at any time, wreaking economic havoc and possibly claiming human lives."

The bridge disaster occurred days after the death toll of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis was raised to eight, after remains of three victims were found.

Raph's Girl note:

"It was scheduled for completion at the end of this month."

Er... not anymore!