Overloaded trucks rather than shoddy construction have been blamed for a deadly bridge collapse in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, the city government said yesterday.

Overloaded trucks rather than shoddy construction have been blamed for a deadly bridge collapse in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, the city government said yesterday.[File photo]

Four trucks were on the Yangmingtan Bridge at the same time, causing a concrete girder to snap, it said in an official statement.

A 120-meter-long ramp then tilted and crashed to the ground, sending the trucks plunging 30 meters, killing three people and injuring five others. Three of the four vehicles were heavy-duty trucks loaded with lime and together they weighed more than 400 tons, officials said.

Truck drivers Wang Zhiwu, Zhang Dingbo and Liu Guodong were taken into police custody following the August 24 accident. Traffic police and officials have also been investigated over lax management and dereliction of duty, the statement said.

Spanning the Songhua River in Harbin, the eight-lane bridge which opened last November is said to have cost 1.88 billion yuan (US$298 million) and took just 18 months to build, a record for the province.

After the collapse, the government dismissed concerns over construction quality.

But Huang Yi, a spokesman for the State Administration of Work Safety, said at the time: "The bridge must have some problems as it collapsed a year after being constructed."

His view was backed by photographs showing broken pieces of the ramp filled with pebbles, wood and even bits of sacking.

And a construction worker at the scene was reported as saying that steel bars used in the project were too weak.

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