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Subscribe to RSSA truck transporting fireworks ahead of Chinese new year celebrations exploded on a highway in central China, destroying a bridge and killing dozens. Angus Walker, for NBC News, reports.
A truck carrying fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations exploded and destroyed part of an elevated highway in China's Henan Province, killing several people, state media reported.
The blast sent vehicles plummeting 100 feet to the ground, state media said.
A 260-foot section of road was damaged, the BBC reported.
China National Radio said 26 people were killed, while the Xinhua News Agency reported only four deaths but said search and rescue efforts were continuing, The Associated Press reported.
Reuters
Rescuers look for survivors near the wreckage of vehicles after a truck carrying fireworks exploded and caused a bridge to partially collapse on the Lianhuo highway in Mianchi County, Henan Province on Friday.
The explosion happened early Friday on a major east-west highway in Mianchi county, about 55 miles west of Luoyang, the AP said.
Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed rescuers digging through rubble in the aftermath of the accident.
In 2006, a storeroom of fireworks exploded at a temple fair in Henan, killing 36 people and injuring dozens more, the Daily Telegraph said.
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How horrible, lets borrow some money from them ... to send to them.
If we borrow it Scooter we will just "blow" it. Makes me wonder about the quality of the bridge construction though.
The truth is now out, and it wasn't fireworks that exploded! Apparently it was Chinese chicken jerky dog treats that spontaniously combusted after the chemicals in them reacted to the heat. Apparently the driver ate a couple as a snack and started throwing up blood before passing out and crashing. Purina claims that there is nothing wrong with their treats and it must be a mistake and refused to pull them off the market, but did add a warning that they should not be transported in a hot car.
"Shortly after the explosion, the Chinese Road Runner was spotted zooming by......Reep Reep!"
Maybe we could have armed all the drivers that would have stopped this.
(roll eyes)
Hard to drive unarmed.
I bet it looked like a Chinese fire drill!
Cars plunged 100 feet? The elevated road was built that high off of the ground? Are any of our expressway multi-level interchanges that high above ground? I could understand if the road was passing over a huge valley or something. Moving fireworks or any kind of explosives should only be done with a security team leading and following the carrier vehicle to make sure that this couldn't happen to innocent drivers and passengers.
Of course there are - most major cities have some elevated interchanges that high/higher. 100 feet isn't really that high.
According to my research, there would be very few that are that high, especially for a single elevated deck as this one appears to be. The TX five-high would make that height, because the normal distance from roadway to roadway is about 22 feet in elevated design. Actually that is the approximate height of a TEN story building (100 feet).
I almost wet my pants going over the I-35W to I-30E interchange in Ft. Worth. Dang that's a big drop...
The high 5 is 120 ft high per Wikipedia. I wonder how often they have to pull white knuckle drivers out of cars to get traffic moving??
I'm sure no expense was spared in transporting these highly explosive fireworks
It would seem that a large truck carrying a full load of fireworks in China could easily collapsed a raised highway. They don't exactly have the same wimpy restrictions on size and strength that we have here for the general public. That load going off must have had the force of several large military bombs. No one builds highways to take that anywhere.
I think part of their trouble has to do with the complete lack of rebar in their concrete. If you watch the video there are a couple of wimpy rebar strands across that whole road. Here there is a latticework of rebar put into the road whether its suspended in the air or just on the ground.
Alex; nice observation.
If fireworks can take down a bridge in China remind me never to drive on any of China's bridges.
WOW! Love our capacity as Americans for human kindness, this Christian nation that we are. So Scooter, JWright and you other folk I pray tragedy or unforeseen accidents never befall you because I can see the compassion just flowing your way . . . again, WOW!
We're not a Christian nation; if anything characterizes Americans its spiteful nationalism, not Christianity.
My condolences to those who died and I hope the injured recover quickly. China has faced a number of deaths fairly recently from construction problems. We too have had our share of incidents. Like where a bridge that a trains cross have collapsed.Recently,a train ended up in a river when a bridge collapsed. Even after that bridge had been repaired, after having already collapsed before when the same train was crossing it two years before.
It has only been in the last decade or less that more efforts have been made to improve the quality in major construction. All due to catastrophic failures and loss of life when earthquakes and other disasters has struck China. Revealing the shoddy quality and inferior products, shortcuts taken and kickbacks. One business CEO was actually executed because of this.
A policy that I wouldn't oppose here and might actually do some good as well
Tragic, but must have been an awesome sight.
The bridge was made in China, did anyone expect anything different? I'm still waiting for the Three Gorges Dam to give way and massive flooding. Rice cement doesn't hold together to well.
Dateline: Hooflungpoo - The "black box" located in the cab of the truck was located earlier today under a nearby pile of microchips and dog treats. Investigators stated that the last clear voice recording was that of a conversation between the driver and his passenger. The transcript of the interchange reads as follows:
Driver - "Yo Chin, you gotta a smoke"
Passenger - "Sure Chopsuey, let me right ("light") that for you"
Driver - "You stupid motha' fu... inaudible"
Well played, sir or madam.
there fireworks did all this damage?? either really good ones or really poor bridge construction..
Wow, and part of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco is contracted out to the Chinese.
Foreign contractors still have to work within local regulations. So they still have to build the bridge to US safety standards (or make a good show of pretending to do so).
Can you imagine anyone who was at the end of making whoopee about the time this truck blew up! Wow did you feel the ground move when you reached climax because I sure did..
My condolences to lost souls, Hopefully they never felt a thing when this all happened. Rest in peace. (Humor is how a lot of folks deal with a tragedy, I do as you can see above and I mean no disrespect to anyone)
I sure wouldn't want to be the one responsible for the truck load of fireworks that caused all of this, I'll bet there trying to get out of China and relocate to the states or anywhere but China about now. Someone is going to hang or worse for all of this.
"Truck carrying fireworks explodes, driver stir-fried".
You know, if we heard about EVERY disaster that happened in China every day, the news would be totally full of this sort of report. It's time China went back behind their secret curtain of silence and just disappeared from the world news.
If the truck had just 10 ton of firework, it had the equivalent of 1-2000 lbs of TNT and that will be enough to destroy any bridge in the world; however, they did not all explode at the same time like a bomb. Firework should be carry in a typical steel container without the top. A tarp can be used to prevent rain damage. In case of fire, most of the firework will go straight up in to the air and we only have an accidental firework display.