Bridge collapse workers punished

Three organizations and 16 people who were responsible for the collapse of the Lianshui river bridge on March 12 in Loudi city, in Central China's Hunan province, have received severe punishment, Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported on Thursday.

The Lianshui river bridge project department of Zhongnan Urban Construction Co Ltd, which was in charge of building the bridge, is responsible for all economic losses caused by the accident. It was ordered to remove the collapsed bridge and rebuild it within a time set by the local government, according to the report.

The project's supervision and development companies were also punished by the local government, said the report.

Zhou Lijun, the person in charge of the Lianshui river bridge project department, and four other people who were directly responsible for the collapse, were fired, the report said.

The vocational certificates of Zhou and the three others were also revoked by construction supervision departments.

Another 11 people were punished seriously, including being given warnings and having faults put on their records.

The collapsed part of the bridge is being rebuilt now. The project is expected to be finished and open to traffic by December this year, said the report.

One part of the bridge over the Lianshui river in Loudi collapsed due to improper construction practices around 9:40 pm on March 12. The accident caused an economic loss of 4.38 million yuan ($690,000). There were no casualties.