China has suspended the building of all unreinforced arch bridges throughout the country as of Saturday, following the deadly bridge collapse in central China's Hunan Province which led to 41 people dead and 22 missing.
Minister of Communications Li Shenglin announced the order on Friday at a national meeting on a special action to investigate safety problems in transportation facilities.
Li demanded all provincial transportation departments to organize special teams to carry out meticulous examination on every unreinforced arch bridge, and construction work will not be allowed to resume before it is ensured that there is no safety problems.
Li asked all provincial transportation departments to deliver safety check reports on bridges, tunnels and other transportation facilities to the ministry before September 10.
Statistics from the ministry show that China has more than 530,000 highway bridges, about one third of which were built in the 1960s and another one third built in the 1980s.
On August 13, the Dixi Bridge, an unreinforced arch bridge over the Tuojiang River being built in Fenghuang County of Hunan Province, collapsed in seconds. So far 41 people have been confirmed dead, while rescue work is still going on to look for 22 others who are still missing.
Source: Xinhua
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