(TibetanReview.net, Aug23’25) – Twelve people have died and four remain missing as of 6 pm Aug 22 due to a steel cable failure at a bridge construction site in Qinghai province for the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway which occurred earlier in the day, reported China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Aug 23. It is stated to be a key project – slated for completion later this month – of the new railway.
The accident occurred around 3 am at the under-construction bridge on the Qinghai section of the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway, where 16 workers were on site at the time, the report said, citing Xinhua.
At least 91 rescue vehicles, including 27 boats, a helicopter and five robots, along with 806 personnel, were deployed to help with the search and rescue effort, reported cbsnews.com Aug 22, citing state television network CCTV. Six hospitals in the region were stated to have been prepared to intake victims for treatment.
The bridge is located at the border between Jianzha (Tibetan: Chentsa) county in the Huangnan (Malho) Tibetan autonomous prefecture and Hualong (Bayan or Palung) Hui autonomous county in Haidong (Tsoshar) City, Qinghai province. It is the first steel truss arch railway bridge in the PRC to cross the Yellow River, party mouthpiece People’s Daily was cited as saying.
Public information is stated to show that the bridge, one of the key projects of its type on the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway, has a length of over 1,596 meters, with the arch’s apex standing 130 meters above the water’s surface, equivalent to the height of more than 40 stories. Its deck is 55 meters above the Yellow River’s surface.
The maximum cable force on the side spans of the bridge reaches 1,161 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 750 small cars, and each tower weighs 1,800 tons, with the largest segment weighing 45 tons, said the chinadaily.com.cn report, citing Qinghai Daily.
The bridge is the world’s longest double-track continuous steel truss arch railway bridge and the PRC’s first steel truss arch railway bridge spanning the Yellow River, the official globaltimes.cn Aug 22 cited media reports as saying.
The report said the bridge’s cable tower was capped on Jun 14, 2025, and the project was scheduled for closure by Aug 2025.
The collapse of such a key national project, previously touted as an engineering marvel, is a major embarrassment to the Chinese government. Its Ministry of Emergency Management has said it would determine the cause of the accident as soon as possible, and undertake decisive measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.