(TibetanReview.net, Dec29’25) – The collapse on Nov 11 of the Hongqi (literally “the Red Flag”) Bridge over the Dadu River (Tibetan: Gyalmo Ngulchu) in eastern Tibet’s Kardze prefecture (now part of China’s Sichuan province), was directly caused by the continued filling of the Shuangjiangkou power station dam by ignoring tell-tale warnings of an impending geological disaster. Landslides became frequent after the dam’s height was raised and filled with more and more water on successive occasions, leading to the massive landslide which struck the bridge, according to a detailed report posted on the chineseyouthstandfortibet.substack platform Dec 28.
The reservoir is built at the border between Barkham and Chuchen (Chinese: Jinchuan) counties in Ngawa Prefecture (Aba), Sichuan province, along the upper reaches of the Dadu River valley,
The report noted that on May 1, 2025, Shuangjiangkou completed Phase I impoundment, raising the water level to 2,344.3 meters above sea level, with a depth increase of more than 90 meters and a storage volume of 110 million cubic meters. On Oct 10, Phase II impoundment began, with the water level rising by more than 70 meters and storage reaching 660 million cubic meters. So, within approximately seven months, the water level rose by more than 160 meters. This rate and magnitude of rising water set a world record. Just one month after Phase II began, the Hongqi Bridge, located in the heart of the reservoir area, collapsed.
The Hongqi Bridge on National Highway 317 was once promoted as a “Lifeline in the Clouds.” In official footage, it spanned the gorge with piers soaring into the mist against a backdrop of majestic peaks—hailed as a “green road for ecological protection” and a “path of unity for ethnic solidarity.” But at approximately 4:00 PM on Nov 11, a landslide struck the right-bank abutment of the bridge. And the bridge was gone after it had remained open to traffic for less than ten months.
There were no casualties, as repeatedly emphasised by state news reports. But this was only because a Tibetan driver named Tsering Si Tenzin had spotted cracks the previous day, and reported it, leading to an emergency closure and the redirection of traffic.
The Shuangjiangkou station is stated to be situated in a high-altitude region with intense erosion and extremely complex geological structures. The Dadu River carves through deep canyons often exceeding 1,000 meters in depth. The geological environment was inherently unstable. Local villagers noted that once the water began to rise, landslides became frequent; the slope behind their old village collapsed after the first phase of impoundment. A reservoir exerts immense weight; such rapid and massive water accumulation easily triggers landslides and collapses—phenomena frequently observed in other large-scale reservoirs such as the Three Gorges, the report noted.
The report also noted that in early feasibility studies, one official “challenge” was apparently not the fragility of the local geology but the need to relocate around 6,000 “Tibetan-area resettlers,” alongside “prominent ethnic and religious issues.” These villagers were moved to a temporary prefab resettlement site along the reservoir which was also swallowed by water following the collapse of the Hongqi Bridge.
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Despite it all, construction crews will soon clear the debris from the collapse of the Hongqi Bridge; new technical plans will be discussed, reviewed, and approved. The water in the Shuangjiangkou reservoir will continue to rise, submerging more of the old terrain and villages, the report said.
But behind these so-called “progress” and “protection,” from dams to villages, from bridges to caves, lies the cost Tibetans are forced to bear again and again: the loss of home, the loss of sacred ground, and the loss of the chance to decide their own future on their own land, the report said, referring also to other reservoirs being built in other parts of Tibet as well that have led to the relocation of villages and the watery burial of centuries-old temples and other invaluable living cultural sites.
The report further said: “This is a script repeated countless times: when dams are to be built, mines dug, tourist sites developed, Tibetans and Tibetan culture—stupas, flags, and faith—are treated as ‘obstacles to development’ and ‘threats to unity.’ Villages are flooded, sacred objects burned, protesters dragged onto trucks and thrown into detention. Tibetans are merely defending their ancestral lands and their faith, yet in official narratives, they are branded as ‘troublemakers’ or ‘separatists’.”
The report continued: “This narrative has endured for decades: from ‘liberating serfs’ and ‘land reform’ to ‘Develop the West’ and ‘green low-carbon growth’; from demolishing monasteries and dispersing monastics to turning Tibetan civilizational heritage into playgrounds for tourists and worksites for outside bosses; from suppressing language and belief to covering everything with the rhetoric of ‘ethnic unity’.”