The Lixinsha Bridge in Nansha, Guangzhou, broke after being struck by an empty container ship, causing 5 deaths and attracting widespread attention.

　　Why did the ship deviate from its course and hit the pier? Why did a section of the bridge deck break off? How will the broken bridge be repaired and hidden dangers eliminated? What legal liability will the party responsible bear? These have become the four focal issues after the incident.

　　A sailor with more than ten years of experience told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that before the incident, the speed of the responsible vessel was 4.6 knots (nautical miles per hour), which is relatively slow and not speeding. In terms of weather, the waterway around 5 a.m. is most prone to fog, resulting in poor visibility; in terms of human factors, around 5 a.m. is also when people are most likely to feel sleepy, making fatigue driving likely.

　　The sailor said that generally, when a ship is underway, two people are assigned to duty, one is the helmsman and the other is a sailor, and when passing through narrow waterways, bridges, waters with poor visibility, etc., the captain must be present.

　　Why did the ship hit the pier?

　　According to official reports, at around 5:31 on February 22, a container ship traveling empty from Nanhai, Foshan to Nansha, Guangzhou, touched the pier of the Lixinsha Bridge in Guangzhou Nansha while passing through the Hongqili Waterway, causing the bridge deck of the Lixinsha Bridge to break.

　　The Paper previously reported that the responsible vessel was the cargo ship "Lianghui 688", with a length of 60 meters and a height of 18 meters. "Lianghui 688" sent a position at around 5:29 on February 22, with a speed of 4.6 knots (nautical miles per hour).

　　The Paper noted that "Lianghui 688" is registered under Foshan Lianghui Shipping Service Co., Ltd. Zhang Bingrong, legal representative of Foshan Lianghui Shipping Service Co., Ltd., responded to the media that the responsible vessel was only affiliated with the company, and "I don't know the specifics either."

　　It is worth mentioning that in January 2024, "Lianghui 688" (Maritime Safety Law) was fined 30,000 yuan by the Shenzhen Dachan Maritime Safety Administration for failing to strengthen lookout when entering and leaving ports, anchorages, or passing through bridge waters, straits, narrow waterways, important fishery waters, areas with dense navigable vessels, ship routing areas, and traffic control areas.

　　At a press conference held on February 22, Yin Qiang, deputy director of the Guangzhou Maritime Safety Administration, introduced that at around 5:31 a.m. on the 22nd, when the Foshan-registered container ship "Lianghui 688" was navigating through the Nansha Hongqili Waterway, due to improper operation by the crew, the port side hull of "Lianghui 688" touched the No. 18 pier of the downstream navigable span of the Lixinsha Bridge, and then the bow again touched the No. 19 pier of the downstream navigable span, causing the bridge deck on that navigable span to break.

　　According to a previous report by Caixin, on-site government staff pointed out that the vessel involved deviated from its course during navigation and, when approaching the Lixinsha Bridge, had no time to adjust its course and hit the pier. The pier that was struck is located on the southwest side of the bridge and showed obvious tilting.

　　A sailor with more than ten years of experience told The Paper that before the incident, the speed of the responsible vessel was 4.6 knots (nautical miles per hour), which is relatively slow. In terms of weather, the waterway around 5 a.m. is most prone to fog, which leads to poor visibility; in terms of human factors, around 5 a.m. is when people are most sleepy, making fatigue driving likely. Generally speaking, when a ship is underway, two people are assigned to duty, one is the helmsman and the other is a sailor, and when passing through narrow waterways, bridges, waters with poor visibility, etc., the captain must be present.

　　The sailor said that after the incident, their industry strengthened warning education and learning, with particular emphasis on maintaining lookout during navigation, not driving fatigued, and paying attention in waters with poor visibility, trying to drop anchor and suspend navigation.

　　Why did the bridge deck break like this?

　　Public information shows that the Lixinsha Bridge (Hongqili Second Bridge) is located in Wanqingsha Town, Nansha District, Guangzhou, spanning the Hongqili Waterway (waterway class III), and is the main channel connecting the Nansha Economic Development Zone and Sanmin Island. The bridge has a total length of 787 m, a width of 9.8 m, and a two-way two-lane deck with no sidewalk. The Lixinsha Bridge was completed in 1992, and the original design load class was Highway Class II, Automobile-20 and Trailer-100. After completion, many vehicles passed over it. The bridge was repaired and strengthened in 2009, raising the bridge load class to Urban Class A load.

　　At a press conference on the afternoon of the 22nd, a relevant person in charge of Nansha District, Guangzhou, said that in 2019, inspection of the Lixinsha Bridge found defects in the T-beams of the 13th span. In May 2020, the relevant defects were repaired and strengthened and passed acceptance. In June of the same year, the bridge was assessed as a Class 2 bridge, indicating that the technical condition of the bridge was in good condition, and the weight limit for passing vehicles was raised to 20 tons.

　　In October 2021, in order to improve the anti-collision capacity of navigable bridges on rural roads within the jurisdiction, Nansha District implemented the Guangzhou Nansha District Navigable Bridge Anti-collision Capacity Reinforcement and Improvement Project (the project included two bridges: Lixinsha Bridge and Gaoxinsha Bridge). Among them, in December 2022, the anti-collision reinforcement project of the Lixinsha Bridge was completed and put into use; the anti-collision reinforcement project of the Gaoxinsha Bridge is being advanced in an orderly manner. In view of the fact that the overall construction content of the project includes two bridges, the Gaoxinsha Bridge and the Lixinsha Bridge, the Provincial Department of Transport issued a notice in August 2022 extending the construction work period for the entire project.

　　According to a report by The Beijing News, Peng Weibing, an expert in bridge collapse accident analysis and a doctoral supervisor at the College of Civil Engineering of Zhejiang University of Technology, analyzed that from public information, the responsible ship had two collisions with the pier. In the first collision, the ship collided obliquely with the central pier. After the first collision, the ship's direction changed, and the ship collided with the side pier in a direction close to "along the bridge" (that is, consistent with the direction of traffic flow), ultimately causing the side pier to tilt and part of the bridge to fall and collapse.

　　Peng Weibing believes that whether the bridge's anti-collision device can play an obvious role is closely related to the angle at which the ship hits the bridge. "If an empty ship had hit the pier head-on, the problem might not have been so serious. But the ship hit the pier along the bridge direction, which is a very vulnerable direction for the pier; even a small force could displace the pier considerably, and that is exactly what happened in this accident."

　　Peng Weibing introduced that, based on available materials, the structure of the Lixinsha Bridge is mainly the bridge main body plus suspended girders. When installing anti-collision devices on such bridges, head-on collisions and likely oblique collisions are usually considered, but collisions with side piers along the bridge direction are rare.

　　A domestic bridge design expert told The Paper that, by analyzing the drawings, the main bridge structure of the Lixinsha Bridge is a (55+85+55) m T-shaped rigid frame bridge. The main bridge is divided into 3 spans and 4 piers, of which the main piers are No. 17 and No. 18, and the opening between the main piers is the middle span (main navigable span), with a span of 85 meters. Piers No. 16 and No. 19 are side piers, and the side spans on both sides (secondary navigable spans) have a span of 55 meters. "The problem is that it is unclear how the ship in the accident planned its route; it did not choose the middle span but took the side span. Although the side span is navigable, this greatly increases the risk of the ship hitting the pier. Moreover, after the hull touched Pier No. 18, the bow again touched Pier No. 19. No. 19 is a side pier, and the structure of a side pier is relatively lighter than that of a main pier and is not resistant to impact. If the ship had only touched the main piers No. 17 and No. 18, it might not have had such a great impact on the bridge body."

　　The expert said that the Lixinsha Bridge was built in the 1990s. Before 2000, due to limitations in technology, materials, and funding, bridges of this type were common across the country. "Although bridges of this structure are now gradually being phased out, these bridges built in the past were also century projects, and their service life has not yet ended, so it is impossible to demolish them all. How to maintain these old bridges so that they meet the shipping requirements of the new era is what we need to think about."

　　The Paper previously reported that due to economic development needs, the waterway class of the river spanned by the Lixinsha Bridge needs to be upgraded from Class III to Class I (navigable for 3,000 DWT vessels). This means that larger tonnage vessels will be allowed to pass under the bridge, and it also means that the risk of ship collision will increase, placing higher requirements on the bridge's resistance to ship collision.

　　How will the bridge be repaired and hidden dangers eliminated?

　　The Lixinsha Bridge is the only land route off Sanmin Island in Nansha District. How to repair it and when it can be repaired are focal issues for the nine thousand residents of Sanmin Island.

　　At a press conference held on the afternoon of February 22, Zou Xiaojiang, chief engineer and press spokesman of the Guangzhou Municipal Transport Bureau, said that after preliminary inspection and consultation and judgment by industry experts in design and construction, at present, apart from the suspended girder on the main bridge side of Pier No. 19 having collapsed, the damaged Pier No. 19 is seriously tilted and there is a risk of further instability. In order to avoid secondary disasters, it is necessary to further dismantle the span between Piers No. 19 and No. 20 to eliminate safety hazards.

　　Zou Xiaojiang introduced that at present, the transport department is organizing the mobilization of construction teams and the required large machinery and equipment, and is urgently carrying out on-site hazard removal. After the on-site danger is completely eliminated, further inspection and assessment of the bridge damage will be carried out, and a bridge reinforcement and repair plan will be formulated based on the inspection results, with traffic restoration implemented as soon as possible.

　　A relevant person in charge of Nansha District said that in view of this accident, Nansha District will carry out a comprehensive safety inspection of bridges within its jurisdiction.

　　"The class of such early old bridges is relatively low, but today's ships are all larger, and in the event of a collision, the structural safety risks the bridge must bear are also greater." The aforementioned bridge design expert told The Paper that the accident of the Lixinsha Bridge also reminds relevant departments that when renovating old bridges, "both the top of the head and the soles of the feet must be considered"—"on the one hand, consider bridge overweight, and on the other hand, consider safe navigation of ships."

　　The expert pointed out that in addition to installing and strengthening anti-collision equipment, safe navigation should also involve proper waterway planning and navigation aids. "The span of a bridge cannot be changed, but the main span is larger. Such bridges should strictly stipulate and guide large ships to navigate only through the main span, which can reduce the probability of collision and also reduce the risk of hitting side piers."

　　What legal liability will the responsible persons bear?

　　In terms of accident investigation, the Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration has set up an accident investigation team to carry out investigation and evidence collection, and the maritime department has also joined with the public security department to bring the responsible persons of the ship under control.

　　Zhao Liangshan, senior partner of Shaanxi Hengda Law Firm, told The Paper that if the shipowner is subjectively negligent and fails to strengthen lookout, adopt safe speed, and take other measures as required, then the shipowner is suspected of the crime of causing a traffic accident. According to Article 133 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, whoever violates traffic and transportation management regulations and thereby causes a major accident, causing serious injury or death to others or causing major losses to public or private property, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; whoever escapes after causing a traffic accident or has other especially serious circumstances shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years; and whoever escapes and thereby causes death shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than seven years.

　　It is worth noting that the Jiujiang Bridge in Foshan, Guangdong, also experienced a ship collision and collapse accident in 2007, causing 8 deaths. According to China News Service, the responsible captain Shi Guide was later sentenced to six years in prison by the Guangzhou Haizhu District Court for the crime of causing a traffic accident. Shi Guide was dissatisfied with the judgment and appealed to the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court. The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court pronounced the second-instance judgment on September 16, 2013. Because Shi Guide violated water traffic transportation management regulations and caused a major traffic accident with vile circumstances, the second-instance court decided to uphold the first-instance judgment.