Why did the 1.8 billion Yangmingtan Bridge collapse in one year, while the Song Dynasty Bridge still stands today?

The spirit of craftsmanship is also the spirit of pursuing perfection. Although its benefits are small, it will benefit the world for a long time.

When did craftsmanship cease to be a special term among a small number of craftsmen circles? I think it might be the summer when the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in Beijing" was launched, the winter when Japan's "Late Night Diner" became popular, or the four seasons when various documentaries about the inheritance of food culture and handmade intangible cultural heritage sprung up. Since then, we have realized that the word "ingenuity" is not an advertising slogan, but an attitude and spirit that truly exists around us and that some people silently adhere to.

China’s ingenuity is not only reflected in the restoration of cultural relics. Jingdezhen ceramics, lacquer carving techniques, blue calico, batik, etc. are all types of our intangible cultural heritage that vividly demonstrate ingenuity. It stands to reason that China, which has raised the banner of ingenuity since ancient times, should be a leader in related fields, but who would have thought that now, it is Japan that really delivers ingenuity to the world?

As we all know, many Japanese cultures and techniques are borrowed from China, such as tea ceremony and traditional Chinese medicine. These things that we think are the most common are transformed into national quintessence-level cultural heritage and labels in the hands of the Japanese. ! In the end, the reason for this situation is not that Japan has robbed our culture. It can only be said that they know better how to cherish culture and how to pass on ingenuity.

In 2012, the famous Harbin Yangmingtan Bridge collapsed. It was not only the reinforced concrete of the bridge that was shattered, but also the painstaking efforts of the architects. On the other hand, the Luoyang Bridge built during the Northern Song Dynasty is still standing in the wind and rain after thousands of years. It is easy to wonder whether Chinese architecture has lost its skills or its ingenuity.

Yangmingtan Bridge

Yangmingtan Bridge is located over the Songhua River in Harbin City. It is the longest super-large cross-river bridge among the bridges north of the Yangtze River. It is also a bridge crossing Yangmingtan Island on the Songhua River. Because of its unprecedented geographical location and transportation significance, it has attracted much attention from the beginning of construction to completion and opening to traffic.

From December 5, 2009, the Yangmingtan Bridge was officially put into construction. It took about 18 months to open to traffic, and the estimated cost was as high as 1.882 billion yuan, of which more was invested. Incalculable. It can be said that in the initial stage of construction of Yangmingtan Bridge, both the bridge designers and investors were full of confidence in it, otherwise they would never have expended so much energy.

Of course, when it was opened to traffic in 2011, the Yangmingtan Bridge did gain both fame and fortune. It stands on the fast-flowing Songhua River, with a total length of 7,133 meters and a traffic volume of 9,800 vehicles per hour. , became another magnificent landscape of Harbin City, and also became the dark horse of China's construction industry that year.

When seeing the success of the Yangmingtan Bridge, its supervision unit once said proudly: A high-quality project is inseparable from a high-quality supervision team. Come to think of it, they never expected that one year after they "seriously" performed their work responsibilities, the Yangmingtan Bridge would collapse.

The accident occurred on the afternoon of August 24, 2012. The approach bridge of the Yangmingtan Bridge collapsed, causing a nearly 130-meter-long bridge to collapse. In this short period of time, a car that was driving on the approach bridge was caught off guard. None of the four large trucks were spared. From the photos taken at the scene of the story, you can see that the cabs of the trucks were completely deformed due to rollover and heavy objects, and the driver was in danger.

Although the later rescue was very timely, it was still too destructive, resulting in 3 deaths and 5 injuries. In order to solve the accident quickly and effectively, the mayor of Harbin came to the scene in person. command. Rescue and minimizing losses are the first task after an accident. The second task is to thoroughly investigate the cause and prevent similar situations from happening again.

After professional inspections and reporters’ investigations, it was discovered that this was actually not the first accident that occurred on the Yangmingtan Bridge. During the construction process, five workers fell from the 20-meter-high bridge. He was injured after falling, but this incident was not widely reported. The construction company believed that this was a simple accident and was not related to the safety of the project.

Not only that, after inspection of the collapsed approach bridge, it was found that there were not only reinforced concrete inside the bridge, but also cobblestones, wooden sticks and woven bags! The steel bars are just laid inside without actual binding. Three of the four passing trains were severely overloaded, and the bridge was overloaded, eventually causing it to overturn and collapse.

In short, it ultimately resulted in an irreversible situation and caused the loss of three people’s lives. This was the responsibility of multiple links, including lax construction and lax traffic management. Going back to the original Yangmingtan Bridge, although it has now been restored to use, it is still sad that the bridge that cost 1.8 billion to build had an accident within one year. On the other hand, the Luoyang Bridge in the Song Dynasty is still as grand as ever, and the ancient bridge-building skills are really Far beyond us?

Luoyang Bridge

Before the Northern Song Dynasty, there was no serious bridge on the Luoyang River. Some bridges that were convenient for crossing the river were also shaky and could be completely destroyed by the slightest wind or rain. , so the prefect of Quanzhou presided over the construction of Luoyang Bridge for the livelihood of the people. Its grandeur is even greater than that of Yangmingtan Bridge.

The Luoyang Bridge is located at the intersection of the river and the sea, and the river speed is more turbulent. Therefore, designers and architects put a lot of thought into making the Luoyang Bridge withstand the erosion of the water. They invented a new type of bridge foundation - raft foundation. Use precise measurements to sink a certain amount of stone into the river and build bridge piers on these stone embankments.

In short, the fact that Luoyang Bridge can stand for thousands of years is closely related to these ingenious and very effective methods. In order to build a bridge well and benefit future generations, ancient architects used their ingenuity to test various methods and finally summed up the most practical one.

Summary

It is their attempts and inheritance that allow us to draw lessons from and continue to reform in the development field. It is also because of the ingenuity of this group of people that we have a sound society and perfect transportation. I think craftsmanship is not just an adjective, nor is it a niche new vocabulary.

It represents a wealth of attitude that can be passed down to future generations. In the Yangmingtan Bridge approach collapse accident, the construction of the approach bridge did not meet the standards and the train was seriously overloaded. These are additional reasons. We should focus on why the construction clearly did not meet the standards, and the supervision unit proudly promoted its " high quality"?

Obviously, they lost their ingenuity under the temptation of fame and fortune. A person with ingenuity will never let himself turn a blind eye to a defect that he clearly knows is there, and will never cut corners for profit. Therefore, it seems that the collapse of the Yangmingtan Bridge was not about our skills losing to the ancients thousands of years ago, but that we lost our ingenuity.

As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to carry forward our traditional culture, we shouldn’t take fame and fortune too seriously.