A captain of a cargo vessel has been arrested in connection with a bridge collapse in south China's Guangdong Province, which left eight people dead and one still missing, the local procuratorate said on Friday.
Four vehicles carrying seven people and two road workers plunged into the Xijiang river in Guangdong in the early morning of June 15 when, in heavy fog, a cargo vessel "Nanguiji 035" traveling along the river ploughed into a section of the 1,600-meter-long Jiujiang bridge that spans the river, causing part of it to collapse.
Investigations have shown that Shi Guide, 43, captain of "Nanguiji 035", was responsible for the accident, said a spokesman with the People's Procuratorate of the Zhuhai District in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.
Shi took a risk in continuing to navigate the vessel despite heavy fog and even did so after he found the vessel had deviated from the main channel following a collision with a navigation mark, which eventually led to the collision with the bridge on the Xijiang River, a tributary of the Pearl River, near Jiujiang in Foshan, the spokesman said.
Shi, from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a neighboring province of Guangdong, was arrested on charges of causing the traffic accident which led to multiple deaths, he said.
Shi obtained his ship license in 1998 and qualified as captain in 2003. He has been navigating the "Nanguiji 035" since 2005.
The salvage workers have so far recovered eight of the nine known victims who went missing after the collapse.
Investigators have said the collapse had nothing to do with the quality of the construction of the bridge which opened to traffic in 1988.
Source: Xinhua
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