Experts investigate bridge collapse

The Ministry of Transport sent bridge experts to investigate a partial bridge collapse in Central China's Hubei province on Saturday that killed four people and injured eight others.

The accident happened at about 3:30 pm on Saturday when a 500-meter section of a ramp bridge connecting two freeways collapsed in Ezhou.

Three trucks fell from the bridge and a car was crushed under it.

Traffic was closed due to the accident, and a rescue team including firefighters, police and medical personnel joined the rescue operation, but some injured people had left the scene before it arrived.

The team cleared the site about an hour after the accident.

After the bridge collapsed, the ministry told local transport departments to inspect the situation and carry out emergency rescue work.

A preliminary investigation showed that an overloaded truck with a weight of 198 metric tons broke into two pieces when falling from the bridge, taking two other vehicles down with it. Further investigations are continuing.

The collapsed ramp bridge, which was 731.08 meters long and 13 meters wide, connected the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway and the Daqing-Guangzhou Expressway and was put into operation in late September 2010.

ThePaper.cn reported that the overloaded truck had a permit valid for Shaanxi province, where it entered the freeway, but had traveled on illegally to Henan province and then Hubei.

The overloading of heavy trucks has long been a source of concern in China, and the ministry has launched measures to crack down on the practice.

In 2016, it released a regulation with other ministry-level departments to better manage heavy truck transportation and address overloading.

Most freight is transported by road in China. About 10.88 million commercial trucks transported 34.2 billion tons of cargo last year, accounting for 74 percent of annual freight volume, according to the ministry.