The collapse of the Sanctuary Bridge left four wounds: who was on the life-saving schedule the day before?

A cross-road bridge, scheduled to complete construction at the end of October in Boding, Hebei Province, collapsed on 7 November during a push on the steel lid, with a huge steel structure being smashed into the passing highway, injuring three construction workers and one truck driver, two of whom were seriously injured. It is alarming that just one day before the accident, the Hebei provincial government website is promoting the project as “in the right place”, which means that the three rings are about to be closed.

The incident, which occurred at the end of October, and then on 6 November, when the bridge collapsed, quickly turned the construction achievements repeatedly advocated by local governments into public safety events. More serious is the fact that a high-speed bridge is still operating at a high-risk push, and that when the structure is detached, there is a truck going down. Who has the construction programme, who is responsible for traffic control, who approves the continuation of operations, and which part of the safety responsibility for the works is carried out, which is a question of tracing in the event of an accident.

♪ ♪ The steel racks suddenly collapsed, workers were hanging up high and the truck hit the bridge ♪

According to the announcement issued by the People's Government of the City of Prestige on 7 November,At 10.50 a.m. on the same day, the fire brigade in the Kiyotaka district was warned that a bridge had been dropped at K105+550 in the direction of the final highway, where a steel prowl was being carried out on a bridge.

Three construction staff and one passing truck driver were injured, two of them seriously. According to the local authorities, all the injured have been treated, emergency, fire and public security departments are involved in the disposal of the site and the cause of the accident is still under investigation.

The live video that is being circulated online recorded the post-incident shock. The large steel frame, which had previously crossed the highway, had been deformed and collapsed, with a large number of metal components crossing the road, and the moving truck having been hit, one of which had a severe deformed cab.

Another group of live images showed a construction worker wearing a yellow helmet and a grey work uniform hanging on to the edge of the high-altitude steel structure. The following are steel structural support and construction equipment. The workers in the picture were placed in extremely dangerous locations, which also raised concerns about safety protection at the construction site.

According to information from the China Road Network, at 1236 hours on 7 November, the G1812 fast-fixed zone K105+550 was interrupted in both directions, with the return to traffic to be determined.

The construction staff suffered a break in the bridge at a high point, the truck driver was hit by a steel structure during normal travel and two different personal injuries occurred at the same accident site, indicating that the construction risks had become a direct threat to public road users.

A common truck driver was not involved in the construction of bridges or mastered the construction programme, and could not judge whether the large steel structure above the head was safe. He can rely on the construction unit and the traffic management to take effective precautions during the hazardous operation. The accident struck the most basic question of public safety management: why can a construction accident directly harm passing vehicles under the bridge?

♪ ♪ The target was missed at the end of October and the accident was still being publicized ♪

One important reason for the strong concern about the accident was the fact that, prior to the accident, there had been a sustained local drive-in campaign around the maintenance of the South Three Circles.

Public coverage, 14 October"Pull the South Three Rings on the ground and push it through the end of October."It was disclosed that the project to secure the three southern loops had entered the centralized phase and that the construction of road stalls, bridge emplacement and ancillary facilities was being intensified at the various segments.

According to the information made public at the time, the three southern rings were maintained at a total length of 21.77 kilometres, using a two-way road level I standard and designed at an average speed of 80 kilometres per hour. Of these, the 631-metre cross-line bridge at the high speed of the cyanide at a distance of 5.882 km in length in the Kikum region is controlled work on the entire sector.

It was reported that the road-based dig-in of the markings had been completed, that the basic processes of bridge pillars, sorghum prefabricated and steel sorghum processing had been completed and that the construction staff were concentrating on follow-up work to ensure that all construction tasks were completed by 30 October.

The report also highlighted, in particular, that the construction units in the sectors were seizing the work schedule, concentrating the machinery and personnel to ensure that the work was completed on schedule.

However, after 30 October, this critical bridge has not yet been pushed to the top of the steel.

On 6 November, the Government of Hebei Province website published the title ""The Three Rings are on the way to the Sanctuary."The public was again informed of the imminent completion of the project.

The report describes the construction of the three ringed Zone in the south on 5 November, where steel slings moved slowly, with the lifting of the top-plugs, and the construction of the bridge across the highway became the last critical point before full-line access.

Wang Ming, Deputy Director General of the PTC Road Survey Design Limited, introduced the longitudinal push of the steel-mounted bridge towards its end and the lateral move in place, which would have allowed the three-ringed southern link to be fully connected in the near future.

One day later, at this critical point of the upcoming official campaign, large steel slabs collapsed.

This timeline reveals the more traceable problem of engineering management behind the accident. Why did the established construction target at the end of October not be met? Has the construction organization adjusted after the original nodes were breached? Are there situations of overloading of personnel, inadequate temporary support management or compressed security checks in the course of the work?

These issues are directly related to management decisions prior to the accident. While the stress of the work schedule itself cannot prove that the accident was caused by a rush to work, for a major construction project that repeatedly emphasized the passage time, whether the pressure on the progress of the project affected safety management must be included in the accident investigation.

It is even more important to ask why local publicity reports consistently emphasize the progress of the works, the closure of the road grid and the expectation of traffic, without addressing the public about the actual risks to the thawing of the high-speed steel plaster, and measures to guarantee the safety of the vehicles on established highways.

Project across the highway, who approved the vehicle to take over during the construction?

The accident occurred during the stairwelling phase, which itself presents a high risk.

The so-called push construction is the gradual movement of the large bridge steel structure to design positions in the intended direction by, for example, pushing through hydraulic tops. During the construction process, the bridge structure will need to be charged with a temporary support system and will be stabilized through synchronous controls, site monitoring and support status inspections.

Once temporary support, push equipment, structural connection or synchronous control is abnormal, the sorghum can be deformed, unstable or even decomposition.

When crossing the operational highway, the construction unit must also address another major risk: the large bridge structure moving above the road and the ability of the vehicles to continue to move safely below.

ChinaRoad Safety Protection OrdinanceArticles 27 to 29 clearly state that the construction of a bridge across a road is a road-related construction activity that requires an application for a permit. The construction unit should submit a design construction programme, a technical road safety evaluation report and an accident emergency programme, and implement safety and protection measures; The agreement of the traffic management authorities of the public security organs is also required for the construction of projects that affect traffic safety.

This means that construction of the bridge at the high speed is not something that the construction enterprise can decide by closing the door. Road management, traffic management, engineering and construction units may all assume their respective security management responsibilities.

During the incident, a moving truck was hit and the driver was injured when the bridge was dropped. This makes it necessary to trace whether temporary closures, stop-and-bus or other traffic protection measures were used during the push operation. What are the specific measures to guarantee that these vehicles will not be harmed by the construction structure if the highway remains open to the movement of vehicles?

Has the construction unit conducted a superstitious stabilization test for a steel frame structure of such magnitude? Is there real-time monitoring of the stress, structural shift and the state of operation of the equipment on site? Was there an unusual alarm before the accident? Has the project manager conducted on-site inspections and performed the stoppage management responsibilities?

These are specific issues that can be traced through construction logs, monitoring records, push-over monitoring data, traffic control clearances and highway operation records.

The public needs to know more about the risks identified prior to the accident, the security measures approved and those that ultimately fail to function, than the general “construction accident”.

Hebei Construction Group logo is of interest and the subject of the project should be made public

As the scene spreads, some of the site messages refer to the presence of the Habei Construction Group on the bridge construction structure, which has triggered public discussion of the identity of the construction enterprise and the responsibility for the quality of the works.

The Hebei Construction Group is a secured construction enterprise with its headquarters under the umbrella of construction services such as building, municipal infrastructure and road bridges.

However, a large road construction project usually involves construction units, general contractors, professional subcontractors, supervisory units and engineering design units, and the presence of business markings on the site is only an important clue to the specific construction responsibilities.

The incident involved a sub-point in the San Sanctuary, where the firm was to undertake the construction contract, who was to perform the steel-capsulation, who was to support the design and validation, who was to supervise the unit, and who was to publish the full list of contractual relationships and subjects of responsibility for the project.

The PET and its relevant units, which had previously publicly publicized the progress of the project, also needed to explain to society their specific responsibilities in the construction, technical management and organization of the project.

For major construction projects involving public financial inputs that affect the safety of highway traffic, engineering contracts, construction organization and regulatory responsibility should not become hard-to-reach information for the public after an accident.

If the investigation eventually finds that the work is being carried out in violation of the law, that the construction programme is being changed without permission, that the work is being reduced, that the security inputs are inadequate or that the supervision of the grade is not being performed, accountability must be further extended to specific business leaders and supervisors.

The survey of the quality of the works cannot only examine the failed steel structure, but also cover the entire cross-line construction system, material testing, connection nodes, weld quality and construction monitoring records to determine which part of the incident occurred.

Netizens have questioned the bridge and the collapse of the soy-debate project has been criticized

The video was widely distributed on social platforms in China after the accident.

The Internet users have uploaded a previous publicity campaign about the South Three Rings Steel Sealed Dragon operation. The message that was circulated questioned whether the bridge was right and wrote, “Don't fall down after the video is taken. The blogger adds:

This message was again noted with the incident. The "the divine prophecy" was described by netizens, and questions were raised about the appearance of the steel structure in construction, the location of the connection and the erosion.

The other netizens expressed their disappointment at the quality of public works construction in China, using ironic statements such as “the day that the bus went through, the day that it was rebuilt”.

The long-standing issue of trust in public works is reflected in the context of these comments. When an engineering project repeatedly promotes construction achievements and is accompanied by structural accidents during the critical construction phase, the public naturally asks what quality and safety tests the project was subjected to.

However, the causes of the erosion of the steel structure, the connection structure and the eventual breakdown of the bridge are different engineering technical issues. What is really needed is a steel quality test report, welding and connection acceptance records, temporary support design programmes and technical test results at accident sites.

If only the Internet users were allowed to judge the quality of the project by using vague video, it would result in the responsible unit with real knowledge of the project data and construction records avoiding the public statements that it should have.

The civil criticism of the Tofu Scrap Project should eventually be translated into a specific follow-up of the work, technical responsibilities and construction management.

Why is the project's performance repeatedly under pressure to secure it?

The public interest of the South Three Ring Project was originally to improve urban transport networks and improve regional access.

However, the value of a public works cannot be determined by the time of passage, the speed of construction or the economic benefits of publicity alone.

From 14 October, when the sprint was carried out at the end of October, until 6 November, when the full line was announced, local publicity was always around the construction progress. The collapse of the bridge on 7 November, however, indicates that at least at least at the most important security point in the project, there have been serious incidents of construction out of control.

The accident also brought back to the attention of the long-standing political-driven problems in the construction of local public works in China.

In an administratively led construction system, engineering, completion of the mains and official access can often be important nodes for local officials to demonstrate governance achievements. The construction unit is subject to the requirements of the schedule, the construction enterprise is under performance and cost pressure, and the supervisory and supervisory department is required to perform safety oversight duties under the stated project objectives.

If the construction period becomes a political task that must be completed and the construction safety is subject to schedule, the systems that would otherwise protect the construction staff and the public may be gradually rendered unbinding in their implementation.

The determination of whether such a management problem existed in the South Three-ring accident required specific judgement through the records of engineering decisions and construction information. But the facts that have been made public are clear enough about the pre- and post-incidental contrast: the local government is anxious to announce to society that the road is about to go, and the bridge is not even sustainable at the critical construction stage.

It is even more alarming that the institutional risk of a similar incident may continue to exist if, after an accident, the investigation is limited to the operational specifications of the direct construction staff or if a particular thruster fails without tracking the schedule of work, construction safety clearance and supervisory responsibility.

The construction personnel are direct participants in the construction work and the first to be harmed when the danger occurs. The average truck driver is even less justified to bear the cost of risk management in the construction unit.

A government-led roadwork should not leave the construction workers and former drivers to bear the consequences of the organization and regulatory failures of the works at the expense of their lives.

From the construction accident to the administrative liability, the answer must be given

The Government of the Qinghuang District of 7 November informed that the location of the accident, the situation of the wounded and the progress of the site disposal had been made public, but the question of responsibility, which was of greater public concern, remained to be answered.

• First, the construction, construction, subcontracting and supervision of the bridge at the high-speed steel bridge at the end of the line must be announced, with a clear indication of the individual responsible for the project.
• Second, the record of the pre-accident work, the risk assessment and supervision approvals should be made publicly available, indicating whether there were any changes to the construction programme and to the top-pivot arrangements.

Thirdly, the traffic authorities and the public security traffic management authorities need to indicate who approves and implements the road traffic organization programme during the construction of the trans-high-speed road and why the social vehicles were still within the reach of the bridge crash at the time of the accident.

• Fourth, local governments should make public the basis for the planned construction nodes at the end of October, as well as the management measures taken after the extension of the project, to investigate whether the work-time pressure has affected the quality of the construction and safety decisions.
• Lastly, medical treatment, compensation for injury at work and compensation for the damage caused to the construction workers and truck drivers injured in the accident shall be guaranteed by law, and the results of the accident investigation and accountability shall be made public.

The investigation into the accident cannot be concluded by the resumption of the highway and the clean-up of the collapsed steel structure.

The day before the accident, the Hebei provincial government website was also informing the public about a near-completed urban road project. One day later, the giant steel slabs at the construction site collapsed, workers were injured, trucks were affected and high-speed traffic was interrupted.

From the “inbound” to the collapse of the bridge, only one day apart.

For local government, the report card that is really needed to be handed over to the public is no longer the time when the South Three Circles were moving through, but the reason why the accident occurred, why the construction safety system that should have worked failed to stop the danger and who was responsible for the accident.

A bridge can be rebuilt, but the injured cannot go back to the moment before the accident. The quality of government work is ultimately evidenced by safety and responsibility, not by publicity reports.