Search efforts have been muddled due to the constant rain, gravel and dirt falling on the site, posing a threat to workers, a fire official told Chinese media.
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The rescue team divided the domain into 10 grids and searched it with dogs and life-detecting devices, according to the report. Excavators and cranes have also been mobilized to help.
The cave left an arid scar on a steep slope in a differently green forest area. Witnesses told local media they heard a loud noise and saw a giant hole open them after passing the segment just before the collapse.
Videos and images posted on local media showed smoke and fires at the site, with a railing tilted toward the flames. A pile of blackened cars could be seen on the slope of the road.
Paintings of rescue workers at the site of a collapsed stretch of road on the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Meizhou, south China’s Guangdong province, May 1, 2024. A stretch of road collapsed early Wednesday in southern China, killing more than a dozen people. local officials said (Xinhua AP News Agency)
A later photograph showed a structural crane throwing a mutilated car onto the road surface, in close proximity to three other broken down vehicles. Everything seemed to have been set on fire.
More than 22 inches of rain has fallen over the past four weeks in the county where the road collapsed, more than four times more than last year. Some villages in Meizhou were flooded in early April, and the city has seen heavy rains in recent times. days.
Parts of Guangdong province have experienced record rainfall and flooding over the past two weeks, as well as hail. A tornado killed another five people in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, last weekend.
Heavy rains and flooding pose a specific problem for mountain roads and road bridges due to erosion, debris flows, and landslides. China has vastly expanded its infrastructure in recent years, adding more than a million road bridges, the world’s largest high-speed rail network, and many new airports.
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In the rise of structure, flaws in structural design and strategies have emerged, while normal inspections and maintenance are rarely neglected. Dozens of people have died in recent years from tunnel collapses and flooding, with 14 drowning in subway trains in the central city of Zhenzhou during major floods that killed about 300 more people.
Later reports indicated that officials did not suspend service as they have done under government guidelines.
China’s projects, such as roads and dams under the Belt and Road Initiative, have also been criticized for their design messes and poor quality, which may simply pose a challenge to its efforts to breathe life into its influence in the world to come.