On the evening of July 19th around 8:40 PM, a sudden torrential rain and flash flood hit Zhashui County in Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, causing a collapse of a highway bridge. Officials reported that the incident resulted in 5 cars falling into the river, leading to the deaths of 11 individuals. Additionally, nearly 20 vehicles with more than 30 passengers were missing.
The collapsed bridge was identified by mainland Chinese media reports on July 20th as the second bridge of Yanping Village on the Shanxi direction of the Shuiyang section of the Daning Expressway at kilometer marker 46+200.
Due to the Chinese Communist Party’s habitual tendency to conceal disaster situations, the actual circumstances may be more severe than the officially released data.
According to a report from ifeng.com on the 20th, some netizens expressed uncertainty about the number of vehicles that fell, mentioning that at the time, “The sky was too dark, and the speed of the vehicles was very fast, averaging over one hundred yards.” Netizens also reported that there were widespread network and power outages in Zhashui County.
Discussions on Weibo were varied, with netizens commenting, “The substandard construction materials from the past are now slowly causing issues,” “Is this a once-in-a-century event every year?” “Blaming the heavy rain again,” “Don’t just blame it on the rain, these should have been considered during construction,” “The quality of this bridge is too poor,” “As a country with extensive infrastructure development, incidents like this will only increase over time,” “I thought I had travelled back in time, it’s exactly like the Meidagao Highway accident,” “Inadequate road maintenance oversight,” “Are they looking into the physical reasons? It’s just corruption and embezzlement.”
In the early hours of May 1st at 2:10 AM, a collapse occurred on the Meidagao Highway (also known as the Meilong Expressway) in the Dapu section of Guangdong Province, causing vehicles to fall into a deep pit and catch fire. Official reports stated that as of 2 PM on May 2nd, 23 vehicles fell, resulting in 48 deaths, with the DNA of 3 individuals confirmed through matching, and 30 injuries. However, the official figures of casualties were questioned.
Recently, regions such as Henan and Shaanxi have been successively hit by heavy rain and flooding. In Shaanxi Province, Baoji City experienced record-breaking torrential rain on the 16th, triggering mudslides and river backflows, turning the urban area into a waterlogged disaster zone overnight. As reported by officials until 6 PM on the 18th, the torrential rain and floods had caused 5 deaths, with 8 individuals missing, as well as interruptions to the Baocheng Railway’s Fengzhou to Qiliping section. Four national and provincial highways were damaged and sections were cut off, along with over 40 rural roads and 21 bridges. The exacerbation of the disaster by reservoir discharge remains a point of criticism in several flooded areas, and the specific reasons for the collapse of the highway bridge in Shaanxi are still unknown.