Just-Completed Chinese Bridge Collapses, Tom Friedman Hardest Hit
Plus: The Tenth Annivesary of the Savage Bataclan Attack in Paris

I always hate linking stuff that shows China in a good light in the Cafe. If there's a Chinese foot-bridge connecting two mountains, I'll link it, but say something like "I don't like linking China, but they do some impressive civil engineering." Partly to justify linking anything that might seem pro-China, and partly because I'm wistful about the days of great American civil engineering.

The last time I said that, a few commenters said: No they don't. Alluding to the tendency for these impressive structures to sometimes collapse even more impressively.

(I did also allude to that when I linked a glass alpine roller coaster going down a mountain's side, saying that China's lack of concern for human life allows them to build some fun-but-lethal amusement rides.)

Anyway, my mistake on ever saying China did some impressive civil engineering.

A bridge has collapsed after just one month of being open to the public.

A massive bridge at a hydropower station in southwest China collapsed Tuesday, sending concrete and steel plunging into a river just months after it opened, according to Chinese state media.

Reuters reported that an official from Barkam County confirmed the collapse to the Chinese state-run Global Times, saying no casualties had been reported.

Sure. Sure. Sure sure sure.

Suuuuuuuure.

Sure sure sure sure sure sure sure.

S U R E

There are no casualties. However, dozens of engineers, minor officials. and witnesses have been Reported Missing.

No but seriously, the bridge began collapsing over a period of hours, so they did have time to divert traffic.

Though they don't say they "stopped" traffic, only that they imposed "temporary traffic controls."

The report added that cracks were detected a day earlier on the bridge's road surface and slope, prompting authorities to impose temporary traffic controls.

Footage of the collapse, shared widely on Chinese social media, showed the Hongqi Bridge in Sichuan Province buckling before falling into the river below, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.

...

Local transportation and public security bureaus said the right-bank slope of the bridge showed signs of deformation Monday afternoon, just hours before the collapse.

Authorities quickly shut down the structure to all traffic and issued a public notice warning of potential safety risks.

Fox says "Reuters contributed to this report." I think I see Reuters' influence in vouching for the speedy, decisive action by the wonderful Red China government.

...

According to Times Now, the Hongqi Bridge was located in Sichuan Province's mountainous Maerkang area and completed earlier this year as part of the G317 national highway--an important route connecting central China to Tibet.

I think Tibet would disagree about the importance of being connected to Red China.

The 758-meter-long, cantilevered two-lane beam bridge stood roughly 625 meters above the gorge floor, with piers reaching up to 172 meters in height. It was built by the state-backed Sichuan Road & Bridge Group as part of efforts to expand access to the Tibetan Plateau.

Unrelated: Today is the ten year anniversary of the savage Islamic State terrorist attack at the Bataclan theater in Paris, as the band Eagles of Death Metal (a Josh Homme side-project) were playing. They barricaded the theater and then murdered with both guns and knives 132 people trapped inside.

I believe the cops didn't go in for hours because they believed, wrongly, this was a typical hostage situation where the best outcome would be had by negotiation. But no, ISIS used their time inside the theater to cut people's guts out with knives.

France observed the anniversary today.

10 years after Bataclan massacre, Paris is still scarred by Islamic State attacks

PARIS (AP) -- Sophie Dias fought tears outside the Stade de France on Thursday as she described her "void that never closes" since her father became the first person killed in France's deadliest peacetime attack -- a night of terrorism a decade ago that still scars Paris and shapes the country.

The coordinated assaults on Nov. 13, 2015 turned the French capital into a theater of blood and calamity: gunfire on café terraces, explosions at a stadium, a massacre at the Bataclan concert hall. Many in France and abroad have described the attacks as the country's 9/11.

The attacks killed 132 people, including two survivors who later died by suicide, and hundreds more were wounded. The night hardened France's security reflexes while deepening a sense of solidarity that has endured a decade later -- with many families now measuring time as "before" and "after."

Dias' father, Manuel, died when the first bomber detonated outside the Stade de France. Speaking at the stadium gate where he was killed, she said the absence he left "weighs every morning and every evening, for 10 years."

"We are told to turn the page," she said. "But the absence is immense, the shock is intact and the incomprehension remains. I'd like to know why, I'd like to understand. I'd like these attacks to stop."

Gavin McInnes @Gavin_McInnes

Ten years ago today, jihadists murdered 130 Parisians in a savage and animalistic attempt to provoke a Holy War.

They started by literally eviscerating the hipsters who adore them.

I don't know about that...

By "QOTSA" he means Queens of the Stone Age ("No One Knows" is their best-known, and I think best, song). Josh Homme fronts that band, and he particpated in Eagles of Death Metal, but I think mostly just on the album. He doesn't often tour with them live and he wasn't with them that night at the Bataclan.

posted by Ace at 05:12 PM

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