The collapse of a section of southwestern China’s Hongqi Bridge exposes unstable slopes, rushed geological surveys, and the hidden risks of rapid dam impoundment.

By Lisa Peryman for Probe International

On November 11, at 4 p.m. local time, a landslide struck the Hongqi Bridge in Sichuan’s Tibetan region, shearing off its approach span in a cloud of dust and debris flow. Viral videos captured the event, igniting global alarm over megaprojects in this seismically fragile region.

Completed just 10 months earlier by the state-owned Sichuan Road and Bridge Group to connect the Tibetan Plateau, the 758-meter structure crosses the Jiamuzu River inside the Shuangjiangkou Dam’s reservoir, downstream of the massive hydropower station. It replaced a submerged stretch of National Highway 317, sacrificed when the dam’s reservoir filled. Critics now point to rapid impoundment and unstable slopes as the triggers in a region already prone to collapse.

Reports indicate that monitoring systems were in place, which alerted authorities to close the bridge, allowing for a proactive response that thankfully resulted in no loss of life. This also demonstrates an awareness of the risks associated with a landslide-prone area in a seismically active region. Sichuan lies at the southeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, where the ongoing collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates generates significant seismic activity, including frequent moderate to strong earthquakes. In 2022, a series of earthquakes measuring up to 6-magnitude forced the evacuation of more than 25,000 people.

Hongqi’s zero-casualties, hailed as a miracle by some, is not solely the outcome of good monitoring equipment alone but rather the readiness of human monitors to report their observations, which in this case included cracks on the bridge deck detected a day prior to its collapse. However, history has shown us instances where monitors neglect to inform the public due to political, bureaucratic, or corrupt motives, resulting in disaster. Take the recent flooding of a seniors’ home in Beijing, where authorities failed to take action despite being aware of the risks associated with a nursing facility situated in a flood-prone lowland and lacking an adequate emergency plan for extreme weather events. In the example of Hongqi, the monitors did their job, but we cannot rely on timely and truthful reporting everywhere, especially in China.

An in-depth analysis of the bridge collapse, authored by renowned geologist Fan Xiao soon afterwards, highlighted a number of critical issues at play: the unstable slope the structure was sited on, an inadequate assessment of the area’s potential hazards, and the impact of rapid water level increases in the Shuangjiangkou Hydropower Station reservoir. The phenomenon of rapid rise in water levels heightens the risk of geological disasters, argues Fan, who points to the occurrence of landslides and earthquakes during impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam, particularly in its early stages of operation.

Along with rapid reservoir impoundment, Fan’s breakdown of red flags concerning Hongqi reads like a catalog of failures:

The bridge pier on the right bank of the Hongqi Bridge was located on a steep, fractured slope. The foundations were not deeply excavated and were partially hanging, with no slope protection works in place. Even without a landslide, there were already safety hazards…

According to relevant reports, early warning signs such as rockfalls had already appeared on the right bank of the Hongqi Bridge in the first half of 2025 … In fact, large landslides of this type typically exhibit multiple warning signs long beforehand … The failure to include this potential landslide body within the scope of geological hazard investigation, monitoring, and early warning mechanisms is a clear shortcoming. 

Fan Xiao’s verdict is blunt: the bridge should never have been planted there. The geological survey missed the ancient landslide body; the monitoring system, though it saved lives, was a Band-Aid on a fracture that had been telegraphing distress for months. Zero deaths were a triumph of human vigilance, not structural integrity.

China’s infrastructure miracle—45,000 km of high-speed rail, 130+ dams in western seismic zones, highways threading the Tibetan Plateau—rests on a paradox: the same political will that delivers projects in record time also silences those who warn that some slopes cannot be engineered into submission.

Until liability is real, independent review is mandatory, and “build at all costs” is replaced by “build only where the ground allows,” every ribbon-cutting in a seismic time bomb like Sichuan will be a countdown.

The Hongqi Bridge is still standing, mostly. The next one might not be so lucky.