The May Day holiday was supposed to be a good day to travel and go home for reunion, but I didn't expect a major accident in which 24 people were killed and 30 injured occurred on the Meida Expressway in Guangdong.
According to media reports, in the early morning of May 1, a collapse occurred on the road surface of the Meizhou Chayang section of the Meida Expressway in Guangdong, and 18 vehicles fell, with a total of 54 people on board.
Judging by the photos released from the scene, there is a long landslide on the highway, and the earth has buried the trees. Some of the vehicles have been badly burned down, leaving only one frame, which is said to have exploded at one point, and others buried in the dirt.
There is a Ms. Cai from Guangxi who said that her uncle's family of five people was missing, including uncle and aunt, and three children, and hoped that they would be safe, otherwise it would really be a tragedy in the world.
Of course, there were lucky people, a family of three rushed over before the road collapsed, but the tire burst. There were also good Samaritans who stopped the car behind and did not rush over.
Highway landslides are not common, so what exactly is the cause of this accident? Officials said that they are investigating, but this is not the first time that a landslide has occurred on the Meida Expressway.
The main line of Meida Expressway starts from Chengjiang Town, Meixian District in the west to Xihe Town, Dapu County in the east, with a total length of 61.2 kilometers, a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour, and a total investment of 5.637 billion yuan. Construction started on January 11, 2010 and was completed and put into operation on December 31, 2014, nearly 10 years after its opening.
Don't look at it is only more than 60 kilometers, but the construction of Meida Expressway is very difficult. The reason for this is that the mountains here are abrupt and the ravines are dense, and the terrain is very complex. Therefore, the proportion of the entire high-speed bridge and tunnel is as high as 51%, which means that more than half of the roads are coming by erecting bridges and digging tunnels.
According to official data, there are 48 bridges with an average length of 1.792 km and 14 tunnels with an average length of 1.05 km.
Apart from bridges and tunnels, there are basically no paved roads, either in valleys or on mountainsides. As you can see from the photos of the accident this time, the road section is built halfway up the mountain, connected to the mountain, and it is indeed easy to collapse.
It is understood that during the construction of Meida Expressway, there were many high-risk situations such as roofing, landslides, and water permeability, and during the Qingming Festival in April last year, Meilong Expressway (Meizhou to Dapu direction) also had landslides, because of continuous rain, causing landslides.
At that time, it was said that there was a major safety hazard of tens of thousands of square meters of earthwork overturned lanes, so the traffic control of the Xiyang to Hemp section of the Meida Expressway was postponed to April 28.
From the weather forecast, it can be seen that it is raining in Meizhou in the second half of April this year, and the rain is not small. The rainfall, which lasted for more than half a month, will have a great impact on this kind of hillside road. Therefore, the cause of this accident is expected to be the same as last year, due to the influence of rainfall, the geology of the place is complex, and the slope is unstable.
However, since the beginning of construction, there have been many landslides, plus last year was also the rainy season, resulting in a landslide, this year again, this can not simply put the responsibility on the weather, this is 24 fresh lives.
In the same situation, the second time, even if it is not a project quality problem, the relevant unit must bear the responsibility for dereliction of duty and negligence. I believe that China's highways have more complex terrain than this, so why don't they collapse?
There is a chance to avoid such a road tragedy in advance, and I hope that the relevant departments can investigate clearly and give a reasonable explanation to the deceased, the injured, and the public.