China: Multiple Roads And Bridges Collapse Leaving Over 100 Dead, Poor Quality 'Tofu-dreg' Infrastructure Comes Under Scrutiny

A series of collapses has raised questions about the safety of China’s road and bridge infrastructure, which was built rapidly in recent decades. 

The country's Ministry OF Emergency Management has directed local authorities to closely monitor major infrastructure such as highways and railways, key areas such as water-related construction projects, and high-risk locations such as bridges, urban underground spaces, and tunnels.

Many Chinese netizens took to the social media platform Weibo asking the government to launch a crackdown on 'tofu-dreg 'projects.

The term “tofu-dreg project”, first coined by Premier Zhu Rongji in 1998, refers to shoddy infrastructure projects. The term gained national traction after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where 20,000 of the almost 70,000 victims were schoolchildren who died in collapsed school buildings, which were later proven to be hastily and shoddily built.

On Tuesday, a bridge that was built in the 1960s collapsed suddenly in southern China.

Earlier this month, at least two people were killed and dozens went missing after a highway bridge between two tunnels collapsed after the area experienced flash floods and mudslides in southwest China's Sichuan province. At least three vehicles plunged into mountainous terrain after the bridge collapsed.

On July 19th , a highway bridge collapsed in Shangluo, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, killing at least 38 people with 24 still missing. 25 vehicles were swept away after a three-lane section of the bridge plunged into a river following a sudden downpour and flash floods.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged all-out rescue and relief efforts to safeguard people's lives and property following the collapse of the highway bridge.

In May, over 50 people were killed in the country's deadliest road collapse when a portion of the expressway, linking Meizhou city with Dabu county in Guangdong province, crumbled. The collapse reported occurred after a month of heavy rains in a mountainous part of the region. Vehicles fell down the slope and some caught fire.

Opened in 2014, the Meizhou-Dabu highway was built at an estimated cost of 6 billion yuan (US$828 million). The project has faced complex technical challenges as it traverses mountainous and steep terrains.

The series of collapses has raised questions about the safety of China’s road and bridge infrastructure, which was built rapidly in recent decades.