A Review of Chinese Engineering

     The growth of population has a positive correlation to the increased use of transportation. Through this growth in transportation, roads and railways are built. But when one of these lines intersects a body of water or a canyon a bridge must be built in order to continue the expansion. People then trust the bridges to be just as safe as driving on any other section of the road. When one of these massive structures fails, people are much more leery about other projects built by the same company. One such bridge that underwent a similarly drastic change in public opinion is the Yangmingtan Bridge in China.

     A section of the bridge in northern China in the city of Harbin collapsed on August 24, 2012. The bridge was originally supposed to take three years to finish, but it was finished in only half of the time. It only stood for then months before this incident occurred. The bridge spans nine miles and cost almost $300 million. The initial reason why the bridge collapsed was four large over loaded trucks were parked on the same 300 foot section. This section flipped to the side then fell 100 feet to the ground. Only three people were killed and five people were injured.

     This disaster is saddening and puts mistrust in the Chinese engineers. But when this incident is put into context with all the other disasters that have happened lately in China it becomes more of a conspiracy about corruption. With the recent school collapses, the train crashes, and the six other bridges falling since July of 2011, the Chinese people have been questioning the truth of the building standards.

     I personally think that China needs to make some major reforms to their standards. They need to make more expanded safety procausions and make the punishment for not following these safety standards more severe. China also should make weigh stations similar to the ones on the United States highways. This will reduce the number of overloaded trucks on the road and also take away the excuse that the government used on the six bridge failures preceding the Yanmingtan bridge collapse.

     These catastrophes will hopefully wake China to the problem of the insufficient safety measures in its infrastructure. Better educating engineers and researching new technologies in civil engineering would be ways that these tragedies could have a positive effect on civil engineering. The most obvious area where the general public will be affected is primarily in the distrust of bridges made by China.

     The bridge is a means by which expansion past rivers and canyons occurs. It is a vessel that people trust their lives with every time they are used. The Yangmingtan Bridge broke peoples trust when it collapsed. It is one of many other infrastructures in China that has failed in the recent past which leads people to question the integrity of Chinese engineers and the like. Hopefully these recent catastrophes will awaken China to the need for change. Hopefully that change will bring about things that will benefit not only civil engineering as a whole but also the entire world.