File Photo: Jianzha Yellow River Bridge in Qinghai in construction

In the early hours of Friday, a construction cable on the Jianzha Yellow River Bridge along the Qinghai section of the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway snapped while under construction, causing 12 deaths, four missing as of Friday afternoon, CCTV News reported.

As of 2 pm on Friday, a total of 91 rescue vehicles, 27 boats, 1 helicopter, 5 robots, and 806 personnel have been deployed for the rescue work, with 6 hospitals opening green channels for treatment, according to the media report. 

At around 3 am on Friday, a rupture occurred during the steel strand tensioning operation on the bridge, causing the 108-meter steel beam main arch rib to collapse. Preliminary investigations show that 16 construction workers were on-site at the time of the incident, according to the Xinhua News Agency. 

The Ministry of Emergency Management has dispatched a work team to guide the rescue and response efforts following the accident, the ministry said on Friday.

The team has been instructed to immediately go to the site to oversee operations, promptly verify the status of personnel, coordinate and deploy water rescue forces, and spare no effort in searching for individuals who have fallen into the water. At the same time, the cause of the accident should be investigated as quickly as possible, lessons drawn to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The bridge on the Xi'an-Chengdu Railway, located at the border of Jianzha county in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Hualong Hui Autonomous county in Haidong City, Qinghai Province, is the world's longest double-track continuous steel truss arch railway bridge and China's first steel truss arch railway bridge spanning the Yellow River, according to media reports.

On June 14, 2025, the bridge's cable tower was capped, and the project is scheduled for closure by August 2025, per media reports.